Anesthesia or anaesthesia is a state of controlled, temporary loss of sensation or awareness that is induced for medical or veterinary purposes. It may include some or all of analgesia, paralysis, amnesia, and unconsciousness. An individual under the effects of anesthetic drugs is referred to as being anesthetized.
Halothane, sold under the brand name Fluothane among others, is a general anaesthetic. It can be used to induce or maintain anaesthesia. One of its benefits is that it does not increase the production of saliva, which can be particularly useful in those who are difficult to intubate. It is given by inhalation.
Isoflurane, sold under the brand name Forane among others, is a general anesthetic. It can be used to start or maintain anesthesia; however, other medications are often used to start anesthesia, due to airway irritation with isoflurane. Isoflurane is given via inhalation.
Crawford Williamson Long was an American surgeon and pharmacist best known for his first use of inhaled sulfuric ether as an anesthetic.
General anaesthesia (UK) or general anesthesia (US) is a method of medically inducing loss of consciousness that renders a patient unarousable even with painful stimuli. This effect is achieved by administering either intravenous or inhalational general anaesthetic medications, which often act in combination with an analgesic and neuromuscular blocking agent. Spontaneous ventilation is often inadequate during the procedure and intervention is often necessary to protect the airway. General anaesthesia is generally performed in an operating theater to allow surgical procedures that would otherwise be intolerably painful for a patient, or in an intensive care unit or emergency department to facilitate endotracheal intubation and mechanical ventilation in critically ill patients.
The Ether Dome is a surgical operating amphitheater in the Bulfinch Building at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. It served as the hospital's operating room from its opening in 1821 until 1867. It was the site of the first public demonstration of the use of inhaled ether as a surgical anesthetic on October 16, 1846, otherwise known as Ether Day. Crawford Long, a surgeon in Georgia, had previously administered sulfuric ether in 1842, but this went unpublished until 1849. The Ether Dome event occurred when William Thomas Green Morton, a local dentist, used ether to anesthetize Edward Gilbert Abbott. John Collins Warren, the first dean of Harvard Medical School, then painlessly removed part of a tumor from Abbott's neck. After Warren had finished, and Abbott regained consciousness, Warren asked the patient how he felt. Reportedly, Abbott said, "Feels as if my neck's been scratched". Warren then turned to his medical audience and uttered "Gentlemen, this is no Humbug". This was presumably a reference to the unsuccessful demonstration of nitrous oxide anesthesia by Horace Wells in the same theater the previous year, which was ended by cries of "Humbug!" after the patient groaned with pain.
Anesthesiology, anaesthesiology, or anaesthesia is the medical specialty concerned with the total perioperative care of patients before, during and after surgery. It encompasses anesthesia, intensive care medicine, critical emergency medicine, and pain medicine. A physician specialized in anesthesiology is called an anesthesiologist, anaesthesiologist, or anaesthetist, depending on the country. In some countries, the terms are synonymous, while in other countries they refer to different positions, and anesthetist is only used for non-physicians, such as nurse anesthetists.
An anaesthetic machine or anesthesia machine is a medical device used to generate and mix a fresh gas flow of medical gases and inhalational anaesthetic agents for the purpose of inducing and maintaining anaesthesia.
William Thomas Green Morton was an American dentist and physician who first publicly demonstrated the use of inhaled ether as a surgical anesthetic in 1846. The promotion of his questionable claim to have been the discoverer of anesthesia became an obsession for the rest of his life.
John Snow was an English physician and a leader in the development of anaesthesia and medical hygiene. He is considered one of the founders of modern epidemiology, in part because of his work in tracing the source of a cholera outbreak in Soho, London, in 1854, which he curtailed by removing the handle of a water pump. Snow's findings inspired the adoption of anaesthesia as well as fundamental changes in the water and waste systems of London, which led to similar changes in other cities, and a significant improvement in general public health around the world.
An inhalational anesthetic is a chemical compound possessing general anesthetic properties that is delivered via inhalation. They are administered through a face mask, laryngeal mask airway or tracheal tube connected to an anesthetic vaporiser and an anesthetic delivery system. Agents of significant contemporary clinical interest include volatile anesthetic agents such as isoflurane, sevoflurane and desflurane, as well as certain anesthetic gases such as nitrous oxide and xenon.
Henry Edmund Gaskin Boyle OBE was a pioneering anaesthetist best remembered for the development of early anaesthetic machines.
Harold Randall Griffith was a Canadian anesthesiologist and a leader in the fields of anesthesiology.
The British Journal of Anaesthesia is a monthly peer-reviewed medical journal published by Elsevier on behalf of the Royal College of Anaesthetists, the College of Anaesthesiologists of Ireland, and the Hong Kong College of Anaesthesiologists, for all of which it serves as their official journal.
The Ether Monument, also known as The Good Samaritan, is a statue and fountain near the northwest corner of Boston's Public Garden, near the intersection of Arlington Street and Marlborough Street.
Throughout recorded history, attempts at producing a state of general anesthesia can be traced back to the writings of ancient Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Indians, and Chinese. Despite significant advances in anatomy and surgical technique during the Renaissance, surgery remained a last-resort treatment largely due to the pain associated with it. However, scientific discoveries in the late 18th and early 19th centuries paved the way for the development of modern anesthetic techniques.
Dato' Dr. Sachithanandan Thambinathan, better known as T. Sachithanandan, was a Malaysian anaesthesiologist.
The World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists (WFSA) is an international federation of independent national professional associations of anaesthesiologists. The WFSA's Secretariat is based in London, UK.
Susane Nabulindo Masakhwe is a Kenyan consultant anesthesiologist at the Kenyatta National Referral Hospital. Her specialty is pediatric anesthesiology, a specialty where, in 2014, there were only five qualified Kenyans in the field. She is one of a very small number of female pediatric anesthesiologists in the country. She also concurrently serves as a lecturer in the Department of Anesthesia at the University of Nairobi, Kenya's largest public university.
James Robinson was a British dentist and anaesthetist. On 19 December 1846, he became the first person to carry out general anaesthesia in Britain when he administered ether to a patient undergoing a tooth extraction. The next year, he published A Treatise on the Inhalation of the Vapour of Ether, perhaps the first textbook of anaesthesia. Robinson's work influenced the prominent anaesthetist John Snow. Robinson also undertook initiatives to reform the dental profession in Britain. At the age of 48, he died of blood loss following a gardening accident; his London home, as well as the site where he first administered anaesthesia, are commemorated with plaques.
