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Sweet vitriol
In the 16th century, it was a Swiss-born doctor commonly known as Paracelsus who had chickens inhale sweet vitriol, noting that they not only fell asleep, but also lost all sensitivity to pain. -
Ether
In 1730, it was the London-based chemist of German origin August Sigmund Frobenius who gave this liquid its current name of ether, which in Greek means "heaven" -
Hilarious gas
Meanwhile, it was the English scientist Joseph Priestley who discovered nitrous oxide in 1772, a gas that was initially believed to be lethal, even in small doses. But in 1799 the British chemist and inventor Humphry Davy decided to solve the unknown by trying it on himself. -
Dispute for the invention of anesthesia.
On March 30, 1842, ether was used to remove a tumor from James Venable's neck, from which he would later remove a second tumor, again under anesthesia. -
Morton and Warren
Morton and Warren were the first to demonstrate the use of ether as an anesthetic. -
Amputation
Robert Liston performed an amputation where this method was used that same December. However, Morton, who was long considered the pioneer in this field, was not the first to use it. -
Anesthesia
On September 30 of that year, ethyl ether was successfully used by William T. G. Morton in a tooth extraction - the patient was a Boston music teacher, Eben Frost, - and two weeks later he gave a public demonstration of his achievement. -
Anesthesia
Anesthesia was discovered from prehistory, but it was not util 1846 that the appropiate method was found. -
FIRST OPERATION
Sixteen days later the big jump would come, when Edward Gilbert Abbott had an operation by John Collins Warren where he removed a tumor from his neck. The operation took place in the Amphitheater of the Massachusetts General Hospital, today known as Ether Dome (the dome of the ether). -
Period: to
Now
Despite the introduction of other inhalation anesthetics (ethene, trichloroethene, cyclopropane), it was ether that was used as a standard general anesthetic until the early 1960s, to be later replaced by powerful and non-flammable inhalation agents, such as halothane, followed by then by enflurane, and later by isoflurane until reaching, in the 1990s, the sevofloran and the most recent disflurane.
