Throughout history, a few men have been associated with the invention of anesthesia. William Morton definitely didn't invent it, but he sure did popularize it. He also tried to disguise the actual che
This is why my father's old joke about his profession was that he was a professional gas-passer. But then anesthesia went to predominantly injectable substances so he had to change the joke, saying that he must be a boring person because we'd talk to someone and they just drift off to sleep....
- I assure you, the other effects of anesthesia are things that he kept in the forefront of his mind.
Paracelsus, a Swiss physician and alchemist, put chickens to sleep with ether in the early 1500s. Never made the connection to using it for surgery. Probably many people—especially dentists—had experimented with ether before Morton tried talking all the credit. There was a team behind him. Science advances in fits and spurts but always builds on previous work.
In case anyone was curious about her awesome cat bus shirt, she calls San Francisco home, where the public transit is called MUNI (short for municipal). The agency is pronounced the same and displayed in that same flowing script that MEWNI is written in.
I have always found it fascinating that we don't fully understand why anesthesia works but we're like, hey this is important so we'll figure it out eventually lol
There's a monument -- a statue and fountain known as the Ether Monument -- in Boston's Public Garden that commemorates the development of anesthesia.
IMO I don't know as there's anything that's more deserving of a monument.
The latest theory is that general anesthetics close calcium channels in the nerves blocking signals. This results in reversable coma. But the first part of the brain that gets turned off is the part that forms memories. So perhaps the patient does feel pain, but just doesn't remember it upon waking.
As someone who's gone to school & learned this stuff, thank you for this :) I'm biased & I admit sometimes an operating theatre is the last place you want to be at 3am on a Saturday, but I really believe anaesthesia (with 3 a's), with its overlap with intensive care medicine & deciphering what it means to be conscious, is the most interesting field in the world :)
Laughing gas CAN make you laugh a lot if something gets you started. One time as a kid, the dentist/nurse put the thing on my nose and then left for a bit. After what felt like an ETERNITY (prolly like 5-10 min, if that), I had gotten really relaxed and thought of something funny. Then I started chuckling, then kept going, and going, and I literally couldn't stop.
Oh, to be that nurse who came back to a child who was high af, laughing at nothing
It's a good reminder that popularizing a breakthrough and inventing it are two very different contributions, even though history tends to blur them into a single name.
For everyone now extremely curious about the deaths of Wells, Morton, and Jackson: Wells became addicted to chloroform, assaulted a woman, and took his own life at age 33. Morton died of a stroke at age 48. Jackson was committed to an asylum in his 60’s and died at age 75.
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- I assure you, the other effects of anesthesia are things that he kept in the forefront of his mind.
IMO I don't know as there's anything that's more deserving of a monument.
Oh, to be that nurse who came back to a child who was high af, laughing at nothing