World Anaesthesia Day commemorates the first successful demonstration of ether anaesthesia on October 16, 1846. This ranks as one of the most significant events in the history of medicine and has made it possible for patients to obtain the benefits of surgical treatment without the pain associated with an operation.
William Thomas Green Morton, a Boston dentist conducted the first public demonstration of the inhalational anesthetic. He was invited to the Massachusetts General Hospital to demonstrate his new technique for painless surgery. After Morton had induced anaesthesia, surgeon John Collins Warren removed a tumour from the neck of Edward Gilbert Abbott. The previously skeptical Warren was impressed and stated ‘Gentlemen, this is no humbug.’
In a letter to Morton shortly thereafter, physician and writer Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. coined the term “anaesthesia”.
This remarkable accomplishment changed the practice of medicine forever and it is one of the great events in modern medicine. The 19th century (1801 - 1900) was an era of invention and discovery that lay the groundwork for the technological advances of the 20th century. Chloroform was used as an anesthetic agent by Simpson in Edinburgh, UK on November 15, 1847. Both ether and chloroform were used in different parts of the world in the latter part of 19th century.
It is interesting to note that David Waldie, a chemist who has been credited for introducing chloroform in clinical anaesthesia, came to Calcutta in 1853. He started his chemical company and lived there till his death in 1889.
In the Indian scenario, the first administration of ether anaesthesia was in 1847 at Medical College Hospital, Calcutta. The first chloroform anaesthesia in India was administered on January 12th 1848 at Calcutta. The world began to discard chloroform, in preference to ether, due to the toxicity associated with the use of chloroform. However in India till 1928, chloroform was the only anaesthetic used. In fact, it became synonymous with anaesthesia. ‘Chloroformed’ was the popular expression for anaesthesia.
Mahatma Gandhi was operated upon on January 12 1925 for an eventful emergency appendicectomy in Sassoon Hospital, Pune. Dr. Date administered open drop Chloroform. A notable incident being that electricity failed; a torch was brought in ,which got fused; Surgeon Col. Maddock completed the operation in the light of a kerosene lamp !!
New anesthetic agents, muscle relaxants, short acting narcotics were introduced in the later part of 20th century. Devices were developed to monitor blood pressure, activity of the heart and lungs and to measure oxygen content of the blood, to name a few, along with other anaesthesia gadgets.
Anaesthetic-related mortality has decreased over the past five decades. According to recent Lancet medical journal, after analysing more than 21·4 million anesthetic administrations given to patients undergoing general anaesthesia in a mixed surgical population, mortality solely attributable to anaesthesia declined over time, from 357 per million before the 1970s to 34 per million in the 1990s-2000s.
Despite increasing patient baseline risk, perioperative mortality has declined significantly over the past 50 years with greatest decline in developed countries. In healthy individuals, with no other medical illness the mortality solely attributed to anesthesia has come down to 1 in 2.5 lakhs,
according to various other studies .
Anesthesiology as a specialty is young as compared to the thousand year old well-established surgical faculties. This specialty has contributed tremendous advances in the field of medicine, surgery, intensive care and pain management.