The tipping point for anesthesia came on 16 th October 1846, when William T.G. Morton demonstrated the removal of a jaw tumour painlessly with the patient being anaesthetized with 'Ether'. Following ...

Anesthesia was in its infancy when the American Civil War began in 1861. The sheer number of casualties gave surgeons on both sides the opportunity to gain experience with the first two anesthetic ...

Editor's Note: Shauna Devine, Ph.D., is a historian of Civil War and American medicine. She has a Ph.D. in medical history and currently holds a joint appointment as a research fellow at the Schulich ...

“Soothing, quieting and delightful beyond measure.” That was Queen Victoria’s description of chloroform, the anesthetic administered by her physician John Snow to ease labour pains as she gave birth ...

Ether and chloroform were some of the first forms of inhaled general anesthesia used in medicine. Discovered in the 1840s, their widespread use began during the American Civil War. Chloroform was the ...

One of the greatest benefits that scientists have wrested from nature for the benefit of humankind is anesthesia to take away the pain of surgery and tooth extraction. Julie M. Fenster, a columnist ...

Surgery would be inconceivable without general anesthesia, so it may come as a surprise that despite its 175-year history of medical use, doctors and scientists have been unable to explain how ...

Childbirth without an epidural? For many women the idea isn’t pleasant, though before the mid-19th century there was no alternative. An entertaining post on the medical history blog The Chirurgeon’s ...

"Doctor, will you give me Chloroform or Anesthesia?" This is the often-repeated query by many patients about to undergo an operation. Little do they know that chloroform became obsolete decades ago.