Pain/Anaesthetics

Question 1

What were the problems with surgery in the 1800s?

Answer 1

Pain
Infection
Bleeding

(PIB)

Question 2

What was the first anaesthetic discovered? Who discovered it? When was it discovered?

Answer 2

Nitrous Oxide - Laughing Gas.
Discovered by Humphrey Davy.
Discovered in 1799.

Question 3

What was the second anaesthetic discovered? When was it discovered?

Answer 3

Ether
1846

(N.B. Ether wasn’t ‘discovered’, instead people found that it could be used to knock people out/in surgery.)

Question 4

Who played important roles in the discovery of ether? (What were their professions and how did they contribute to its use?)

Answer 4

John Collins Warren - American Surgeon. First to realise it could be used as an anaesthetic.

William Morton - Dentist. Carried out first public demonstration as ether as an anaesthetic.

Robert Liston - Scottish Surgeon. First surgeon to use it in an operation.

Question 5

What was the third anaesthetic discovered? Who ‘discovered’ it? When was it ‘discovered’?

Answer 5

Chloroform
James Simpson
1847

(N.B. Again, James Simpson didn’t ‘discover’ chloroform, he discovered that it could be used in surgery.)

Question 6

What were the benefits and drawbacks of Laughing Gas?

Answer 6

+Numbed patients
+Easier to give dosage than chloroform - could ask if patients could feel pain or not (unlike chloroform)

• Didn’t knock patients out completely
• Horace Wells (an american dentist) tried it on himself and painlessly removed a healthy tooth. He tried it during a public demonstration and it didn’t. This made people not want to use it.

Question 7

Who tried to popularise the use of Laughing Gas (and how)?

Answer 7

Horace Wells (an american dentist). He used it on himself to remove a healthy tooth. However, when he used it during a public demonstration, the patient still felt pain.

Question 8

What were the benefits and drawbacks of Ether?

Answer 8

+Knocked people out completely
+Patient felt no pain

• Caused irritation to the eyes and throat, caused coughing as well as nausea and vomiting.
• Container was heavy, doctors didn’t like taking it around with them.
• Flammable, fires in the operating theatres didn’t bode well with this.
• Had to be inhaled through a special mask. This was inconvenient for mouth operations.
• Caused long sleeps that could last for days.
• If the dosage was wrong, the patient was still in pain.

Question 9

What were the benefits and drawbacks of Chloroform?

Answer 9

+Knocked patients out completely
+Very effective, Simpson tested it on himself. When he woke up, he couldn’t remember being unconscious.
+Not as many side effects as ether.

• Doctors didn’t know what dosage to give patients. When 14 yr old Hannah Greener went for a toenail extraction, she died due to an overdose. This happened very quickly and little could be done.
• Doctors didn’t know if there were any side effects or not.
• There was lots of opposition to its use.

(N.B. Remember, there was also a lot of opposition to chloroform. This is mentioned in another card)