The Early history of general anesthesia

Dr. Duane Stillions is a successful anesthesiologist with more than a decade of experience.
Although modern anesthesia contains many innovative technologies discovered only in
recent years, anesthesia itself is an ancient field practiced by many cultures across the
world.

Some of the earliest reports of general anesthesia come from Mesopotamia more than
5,000 years ago. For the Sumerian and Babylonian cultures, the opium poppy was a readily
accessible source of anesthesia. Evidence from clay tablets indicates that early
Mesopotamian cultures knew about the euphoric effects of ingested opium and spread this
knowledge to the Persian and Egyptian cultures. Although the ancient Egyptians did possess
surgical instruments and several painkillers and sedatives, there is no firm evidence that
they knew about opium specifically.

Before Arab traders introduced India and China to opium in the 700s C.E., both cultures
used aconitum, commonly called wolfsbane or monkshood, and incense made from cannabis
as anesthesia. Chinese history contains numerous references to the surgeon Hua Tuo, who
used an herbal remedy he named “mafeisan” to induce unconscious states. Although the
exact recipe remains unknown, modern scholars speculate that it may have contained some
combination of aconitum strains, jasmine roots, and rhododendron flowers.

Although Ramon Llull is often credited with discovering diethyl ether in 1275 and many
knew about its pain-reducing properties, the first surgery performed with the ether
anesthesia did not occur until 1846, when Dr. William T. G. Morton completed a public
dental extraction in Boston. Dr. Morton remarked on the effectiveness of the anesthesia and
the patient’s lack of response to the procedure. Many doctors during this time also used
ether in conjunction with opium and morphine, a refined form of the opium poppy.

One year later, Scottish physician James Young Simpson used chloroform as a form of
general anesthesia. The medicine, which proved particularly effective, became a highly
sought-after commodity in Europe during the early 1900s. However, its tendency to induce
heart and liver damage caused it to fall out of favor with surgeons in Europe and the United
States.