Anaesthetics - How was pain conquered
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Explanation:
Of all milestones and achievements in medicine, conquering pain must be one of the very few that has potentially affected every human being in the world. It was in 1846 that one of mankind's greatest fears, the pain of surgery, was eliminated. This historical review article describes how the various elements of anesthesiology (gasses, laryngoscopes, endotracheal tubes, intravenous medications, masks, and delivery systems) were discovered and how some brilliant entrepreneurs and physicians of the past two centuries have delivered them to humanity. One name stands out amongst all others when the founder of modern anesthesia is discussed, William T.G. Morton (1819-1868). A young Boston Dentist, Dr. Morton had been in the search for a better agent than what had been used by many dentists: nitrous oxide. With Dr. Morton's tenacity driven by enthusiasm and discovery, he and renowned surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital, John Collins Warren (1778-1856) made history on October 16, 1846 with the first successful surgical procedure performed with anesthesia. Dr. Morton had single-handedly proven to the world that ether is a gas that when inhaled in the proper dose, provided safe and effective anesthesia. One of the first accounts of an endotracheal tube being used for an airway comes from the pediatrician Joseph O'Dwyer (1841-1898). He used the metal "O'dwyer" tubes in diphtheria cases and passed them into the trachea blindly. Adding a cuff to the tube is credited to Arthur Guedel (1883-1956) and Ralph M. Waters (1883-1979) in 1932. This addition suddenly gave the practitioner the ability to provide positive pressure ventilation. The anesthesiologist Chevalier Jackson (1865-1958) promoted his handheld laryngoscope for the insertion of endotracheal tubes and its popularity quickly caught hold. Sir Robert Reynolds Macintosh's (1897-1989) breakthrough technique of direct laryngoscopy came after being appointed Nuffield professor of anesthetics at the University of Oxford in 1937.