Can you imagine a tooth being extracted without an anesthetic? Or, worse, a limb being amputated? A horrific thought! Yet that was what patients had to contend with until the mid 19th聽century when...
Queen Victoria was the first monarch to give birth to a child under anesthesia. Prince Leopold, the Queen鈥檚 eighth child, was born in 1853 after her physician Dr. John Snow had administered...
This past week on October 16 we celebrated National Ether Day. If you missed it, here is why you should not have. Rarely does a single event alter the course of medicine, but that is exactly what...
If you鈥檝e read the article I wrote about why patients are allowed to drink clear fluids but not eat before surgery you鈥檒l know that I recently had surgery to repair the ACL and meniscus in my left...
A dentist named Morton claimed that he could produce surgical anesthesia with this miracle compound and that he would demonstrate it at Mass General. With the observation gallery full and the men...
A woman became allergic to her husband after twenty five years of marriage.聽She developed pain all over her body every time he approached her. The cause? A pain killer! 聽The husband was a dentist...
In 1853 the Queen鈥檚 personal physician, Dr. John Snow dripped an ounce of chloroform on a handkerchief which was then held next to the royal mouth as Prince Leopold was delivered.聽 Her Majesty was...
Rarely does a single event alter the course of medicine, but that is exactly what happened at Boston鈥檚 Massachusetts General Hospital on October 16, 1846 in the surgical theatre that would...