Posted October 16, 2019
Today is the anniversary of a medical revolution: the use of anesthesia during surgery.
Well, that makes it sound like it was the first-ever use of anesthesia - but it wasn't. However, it was the first successful and widely publicized operation using anesthesia.
It's the operation that spread the very occasional experiment of using ether or nitrous oxide as anesthesia nationwide and soon worldwide.
When: October 16, 1846
Where: Boston, Massachusetts
Who: Dr. John Collins Warren
Results: Almost immediately Dr. Warren's use of ether as anesthesia during surgery was copied successfully. News spread quickly. Just a few months after this operation, ether was being used by surgeons in Europe, and within a year it was being used in battlefields in the Mexican War.
What is ether?
In organic chemistry, ether is a kind of compound. All ethers have a certain structure: an oxygen atom connected to two alkyl or aryl groups - groups of carbons and hydrogen atoms.
One of chemistry's ethers is the substance we use as an anesthesia: diethyl ether (often called simply "ether"). It looks a bit like this:
CH3–CH2–O–CH2–CH3
Back in the day, some young people had "ether riots," which were actually parties during which guests breathed in ether gas and then lost all inhibitions.
By the way, ether (sometimes spelled aether) is also a term that refers to a very thin, invisible substance people used to think filled "empty" space between planets and the Sun and so forth.
It was sometimes considered the fifth element, after earth, water, air, and fire.
AND it's associated with bitcoin; it's been called the fuel that powers the cryptocurrency network!Also on this date:
(Wednesday of the second full week of October)
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