The history of anesthethics

The history of Anesthetics

Anesthesia , a condition in which the sense of touch and ability to feel pain are impaired or lost in part or all of the body . It may be accompanied by loss of consciousness . Anesthesia may result from disease or injury . However , the term usually refers to medical anesthesia brought about to deaden or eliminate pain caused by injury or disease or during a surgical operation or childbirth . In surgery , anesthesia is also helpful because it relaxes the muscles

An anesthetic is a substance used to produce anesthesia . It

may also brought about by hypothermia , or lowering of body temperature

Attempts to deaden pain have been made since early times . For centuries , alcohol , opium , mandrake , hemp , and henbane were given orally or by inhalation during surgery and in childbirth . The Indians of Peru chewed the leaves of the coca plant from which cocaine is derived and used their saliva to reduce local pain during surgery ( Allender 25-29

General Anesthetics came into use in the 1840 's . In 1845 Horace Wells a Connecticut dentist demonstrated the effects of nitrous oxide . About the same time William T . G . Morton , a Massachusetts dentist , began using ether his methods were publicly demonstrated in 1946 . Dr . Crawford W Long of Georgia had used ether in a tumor operation in 1842 and later in other operations , but he

did not publish his results until 1849 . Sir James Young Simpson of Edinburgh , Scotland , introduced chloroform in obstetrics and surgery in 1847

Cocaine which was the first local anesthetic to be widely used was extracted from the coca plant in the middle 1800 's . In 1994 , Carl Koller , an Austrian physician , introduced cocaine as a local anesthetic in eye surgery . In the same year William S . Halsted , a Maryland Surgeon successfully used cocaine by injecting it into the nerve trunks

Anesthesia was used already during the classical age . For a surgical procedure at that time , Dioscorides and opium and mandragora . In the 10th century , a wine was used as an anesthesia while performing and assisting giving birth . It was prepared by a priest who was a Zoroastrian . In china , they used anesthesia techniques by using acupuncture . Using ice in freezing tissues which can have a transient effect on the axons , for them to stop or alter the emotional response to pain and this is also true in doing hyperventilation (Wagman 58

Herbs were used long before Opium and Cannabis were one of them . These maybe taken , or will be thrown in fire and its smoke will be breathe by the person who is to be sedated . Ether or alcohol was also used because they say it is a vasodilator . Mandrake , or the hyoscamine which was also used then was commonly prepared in Medieval Europe . While in Japan Hanaoka Seishu used Chinese herbs when he performed an operation for breast cancer . He combined the herbs as know- how . What Seishu used was Tsusensan , from the Datura metel and Aconitum

On October 16 , 1846 , Morton did an...