Even though we are doing a brief history of anesthesia, there is enough to divide into two parts! Tonight we look at part two, beginning with Dr. Colton:
‘He breathed 16 quarts of the gasover a period of 7 minutes and became completely
intoxicated.’ scientist who gave public demonstrations of his discoveries. Wells, a practicing Connecticut dentist, was at one such demonstration when he witnessed Colton administer Nitrous oxide to a man who then bashed his shin against a stone bench and displayed no sign of pain. Excited by this observation Wells invited Colton to his dental practice the next day. No pain was experienced during the extraction and Wells and Riggs pioneered the use of Nitrous oxide as a dental anaesthetic and went on to anaesthetise many more patients for wisdom tooth extraction. During his career Wells was to influence the life of one of the most important names in anaesthetic history, William Morton. Unfortunately the rest of Wells’ career was not so illustrious and in 1848 he committed suicide after being arrested for dousing a prostitute in sulphuric acid.
He trained predominantly under the guidance of Horace Wells and together they started a dental practice that eventually turned out to be a financial failure. At this point in his life he separated from Wells and began studies at Boston medical school under the guidance of prestigious surgeon Charles Jackson. Here he began investigations into the properties of Ether. Unfortunately Morton’s constitution was never strong and he suffered frequently with anxiety and stress. Early on in his studies of ether he was thwarted by a nervous breakdown and had to return to hisfamily home for a period of respite. After this set back he returned to his studies and was briefly reunited with Horace Wells when Wells gave an unsuccessful demonstration of the properties of Nitrous oxide as an anaesthetic for wisdom tooth extraction. The demonstration was a farce with the patient crying out and thrashing around and subsequently Well’s work was rubbished. At this point Morton’s’ life began to flourish as he opened his own dental practice which was a financial success and even allowed him to open a factory which specialised in making false teeth. With his continuing dental practice his interest in anaesthesia was again stimulated. The problem that he and his patients faced were that to fit the dentures the roots of the old teeth had to be removed at considerable pain to the individual undergoing the experience. He decided to return his interest back to ether which he had studied before. His experiments, which almost certainly did not have the approval of the ethics committee, ranged from testing the effects of ether on his goldfish, his pet terrier and himself. Excited by his results from anaesthetising goldfish he was given a prime opportunity to test his research. On the 30th of September 1846 a patient named Ethan Frost came to his surgery for a painful wisdom tooth extraction and agreed to have it extracted under the influence of Ether. Morton held a handkerchief over the patients’ mouth and dripped ether onto it (without accurate end tidal measurements!). The results of the experiment were published the next day in the Boston daily evening Transcript Morton’s Article caught the eye of an up and coming young surgeon, Henry Jacob Bigelow. On the 16th of October 1846 Morton gave the first ever public demonstration of anaesthesia using sulphuric ether and Morton’s Inhaler in the Ether dome at Boston whilst Bigelow removed a tumour from the jaw of his patient, Gilbert Abbot.
short period worked in a few general practices before embarking upon and completinghis MD thesis. After this he began work for an eminent Pathologist of the time. From this point Simpson’s’ keen intellect and voracity for his work lead him into the field of obstetrics and gynaecology where he challenged practices and produced a veritable cornucopia of publications, presentations and teachings on the subject. His esteem rose and in 1840 he was voted the Chair of Midwifery at Edinburgh
nd Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.
Chloroform that his mind focused on this. In November of the year after the discovery
of ether, Simpson and two colleagues inhaled Chloroform over his dining room table
and needless to say all fell unconscious and slipped under the table. Simpson’s first
thought on recovering (other than my head hurts) was how much more potent
chloroform was than ether.
A few days later Simpson had progressed from his clinical trial to patient testing and
by the end of the month had anaesthetised several patients with Chloroform. Simpson had first used chloroform on a patient by November 8th 1847. 2 months later on
were:
60 years later that Levy used animal experiments to prove that deaths from chloroform
Despite this discovery the popularity of chloroform rose well into the twentieth 30, 000 mourners lined the streets of Edinburgh as a mark of respect. His memory lives on with the dining room where he first used chloroform on himself being preserved to this day. Also there stands a statue in Princess place, Edinburgh, as well as a memorial plaque in Westminster cathedral. There is also an annual James YoungSimpson gold medal awarded by the Royal college of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the winner gives the annual Simpson memorial Lecture
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