Ancient general techniques

SumeriansUsed opium poppy in lower Mesopotamia

“Plant of joy”

3400 BC

Testimony-> Cuneiform script (discovered in 1954)

Considered as well as the oldest pharmacopoeia in existence.

Its use was inherited to the Assyrians (650 BC)

Roman used it also

Years after...➢ 64 A.C.

○ Dioscorides, a Greek surgeon recommends mandrake boiled in

wine

■ "cause the insensibility of those who are to be cut or

cauterized."➢ 800 - 1200

○ Herbal mixtures including opium, mandrake, henbane, and/or hemlock are steeped into a soporific or sleep-bearing sponge

("spongia somnifera")

Paracelsus (1493–1541)● First to use ether in animals

○ noted that the "oil" induced sleep in chickens

when added to their feed. Frobenius (Froben)

named the liquid "ethereal spirits" or "ether" in

1730.

○ Caused immense physical pain and mental

trauma

○ Could not be controlled

■ Patients could wake up during surgery or

not wake up at all

1771 - 1786● Joseph Priestley

○ "airs" of oxygen and nitrous oxide; the first to isolate oxygen

1659● Sir Christopher Wren" and Anglo-Irish

chemist Robert Boyle ○ pioneered intravenous therapy by

injecting opium through a goose quill into a dog's vein.

1845● Drs. Charles Pravaz and Alexander Wood

○ Invented the hollow hypodermic needle, which will be attached to an earlier invention, the syringe.

1842● Dr. Crawford W. Long

○ Etherizes patient for removal of neck cysts

1847● Prof. James Y. Simpson Scottish

obstetrician begins administering chloroform to women for pain during childbirth.

● Chloroform quickly becomes a popular anesthetic for surgery and dental procedures as well.

1853 & 1857● Dr. Snow popularizes obstetric anesthesia by

chloroforming Queen Victoria for the birth of Prince Leopold

● His books On the Inhalation of the Vapour of Ether and On Chloroform and Other Anaesthetics enlightened physician-anesthetists.

1884● Viennese ophthalmologist and

colleague of Sigmund Freud, introduces cocaine as an anesthetic for eye surgery.

● Dr. William S. Halsted uses cocaine for the first regional (mandibular or jaw) nerve block with cocaine.

A "Cocaine Paperweight"

1894● The first anesthesia record using

observed respiratory rate and palpated pulse rate.

1894● The first anesthesia record using

observed respiratory rate and palpated pulse rate.

1944● Sweden's Torsten Gordh, MD (1907-2010) clinically introduces lidocaine as a local anesthetic.

Actual dates