world anesthesia day It is celebrated all over the world on 16 October. This United Nations observance is to honor the first successful demonstration of anesthesia in 1846. Have you ever wondered what the procedure was followed before the adoption of anesthesia?
On this World Anesthesia Day, let’s find out how surgery was performed without anesthesia and how it has changed now:
- Surgery was in vogue since the beginning of human civilization. But making it painless was the challenge. Several attempts were made to reduce pain in the pre-anesthesia era.
- In India, Shushruta (father of surgery) invented a type of anesthesia that was administered orally to patients prior to surgery (hemorrhoids, visuo, lithotomy, closure of perforated bowel, correction of intestinal blockages). It used to be a mixture of cannabis hemp in wine or liquor.
- Shushruta also used an alkaline thread treated with herbal medicines to relieve pain during surgical procedures.
- Then there were sponges soaked in opium and mandaragora to relieve surgical pain. The Egyptians used herbs, plant analgesics and sedations.
- Samohini, another mixture of herbs, was used by Raja Bhoja, an Indian surgeon to induce sleep during surgery.
- Hanaoka Seisha of Osaka created the Mefts-san which induced anesthesia and skeletal muscle paralysis.
- Without anesthesia, surgery used to be extremely painful and painful. This is the reason why doctors used to refrain from surgery unless it was absolutely necessary and unavoidable. Until anesthesia was discovered, surgery was to be performed as the only ‘last option’.
- During surgery, it was mandatory to ‘forcefully hold’ the patient while being subjected to painful procedures.
- Doctors also resorted to ‘speed’ to find a way out. During the 1840s it was reported that doctors at the University College Hospital, London, performed the surgery super fast, just as a patient undergoing surgery did not need to endure pain.
- Robert Liston, a renowned physician, was known for his notorious speed, success and intensity. He could amputate a limb in 25 seconds.
- In fact this quick operation reduced the tissue’s exposure to germs and infection.
How the process of surgery changed with the introduction of anesthesia:
- With the passage of time and the advent of modern scientific discoveries, in 1846, a dentist William T.G. Morton performed a surgery (removal of vascular tumors from the neck) using sulfuric ether to anesthetize.
- In 1853 Dr. John Snow introduced obstetric anesthesia using chloroform. He first used it on Queen Victoria during the birth of Prince Leopold and Princess Beatrice.
- In 1863, Professor Gardner Quincy Colton of the Cooper Institute in New York reintroduced the nitrous oxide cylinder that was in use during the 1800s.
- Cocaine was then used as an anesthetic in eye surgery to interrupt nerve pain. This was done in 1884 by Dr. Karl Koller.
- In the UK in 1901, the Hewitt wide-bore inhaler was invented by Dr. Frederick William Hewitt. It was a modification of the clover ether inhaler.
- In 1905, Dr. Frederick W. Hewitt administered chloroform-ether to King Edward VII.
- After which an inhaler named David Inhaler was invented by Dr. S. Griffith Davis in 1913. It contained a combination of nitrous oxide, oxygen and ether.
- In 1993 the ethylene-oxygen surgical anesthetic was administered by Dr. Isabella Herb. Low-dose ethylene brought about a trance-like state and induced drowsiness in patients.
- Dr. Ralph M. Waters introduced a carbon dioxide absorbent device (to-and-fro canister), and then intravenous sodium thiopental and the inhalational anesthetic cyclopropane gas.
- Vaporizer anesthetic that used desflurane to relieve pain sensations in 1993. Sevoflurane was used as an inhalation anaesthetic.
- In recent times, with advances in medicine that led to better anaesthetics, surgery has become less painful.
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