History of Anaesthesia
Anaesthesia today is the culmination of many earlier discoveries and events.
Surgical procedures are not a recent development, but most surgical procedures today would not be possible without anaesthesia.
There is evidence of surgical procedures dating back to our earliest ancestors – the European Neolithic man. By the time of the Greeks and Romans, surgical procedures, albeit minor, were taking place. In ancient India, surgery was well advanced with the development of surgical instruments and even plastic surgical procedures (the surgical reconstruction of an amputated nose by the use a rotational flap have been described.
900-1000AD
Around 900-1000 AD the Arabs in Andalusia were performing abdominal surgery. Islamic surgeons and physicians described many operations and medical procedures, including bladder stones and caesarean sections. The Islamic practice of medicine was a thousand years ahead of western medicine and much of what was claimed as new was a rediscovery of ancient techniques lost to the West.
Image: Dr William Purdie – a contemporary of James Simpson Purdie brought chloroform with him when he arrived in Dunedin in December 1849. (From R.V Fulton’s Medical Practice in Otago and Southland in the Early Days – courtesy Otago Daily Times, Ltd.).
History of Anaesthesia
- 500 BC Opium analgesia described by Hippocrates
- 1544 Ether synthesised
- 1596 South American arrow poison described
- 1628 Harvey describes the circulation
- 1665 First IV injection of opium into a dog
- 1776 Mesmer describes hypnosis
- 1772 N2O discovered
- 1796 Moore compresses nerves to produce local anaesthesia
- 1829 Cloquet uses hypnosis for mastectomy
- 1847 First veterinary treatment using anaesthesia, at Veterinary College London
- 1848 First anaesthetic death. Hannah Greener aged 15 died after chloroform administration (she had had a toenail removed)
- 1853 Invention of the hypodermic syringe and needle
- 1860 Cocaine isolated
- 1863 Popularisation of the use of N20
- 1867 Prof Lister introduces antiseptic surgery
- 1884 Demonstration of the local anaesthetic properties of cocaine on the cornea
- 1894 Harvey Cushing advocated the use of anaesthetic record charts
- 1898 August Bier introduced “spinal anaesthesia”
- 1917 Boyle’s anaesthetic machine, a N2O and O2 machine, first described
- 1920 Magill and Rowbotham developed endotracheal anaesthesia
- 1929 Fleming discovers that the mould Penicillium notatum inhibits bacteria
- 1930 The circle absorption system introduced by Brian Sword
- 1932 Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland formed
- 1934 Thiopentone popularised; Australian Society of Anaesthetists formed
- 1939-42 An ear oxygen meter developed, and term oximeter coined
- 1940 Preparation of an active and concentrated form of penicillin described
- 1942 Muscle relaxants introduced
- 1945 The American Society of Anaesthetists formed
- 1948 The New Zealand Society of Anaesthetists formed
- 1951 Halothane synthesised
- 1952 Faculty of Royal Australasian College of Surgeons formed; Pin index system introduced
- 1973 Prototype pulse oximeter used clinically
- 1983 LMA use described
- 1984 Propofol in soya bean oil introduced
- 1987 First clinical use of desflurane
- 1992 The Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA) formed, after 40 years operating under the Australasian College of Surgeons