Bulletin of Anesthesia History

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How does one's knowledge of pain affect the physical "being" of pain? Following German idealist philosophy, unconsciousness to such knowledge would seemingly abdicate the very nature of pain. "Nothing exists but thoughts!--the universe is composed of impressions, ideas, pleasures, and pains!" Humphry Davy exclaimed upon leaping out of the laughing gas chamber where he had breathed some 100 quarts of nitrous oxide. The discovery of nitrous oxide gas as an agent of transubstantiation led to the discovery of the medical science of anesthesia by a genius, but backcountry physician, Dr...

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The field of anesthesiology has changed dramatically from its humble beginnings. Rags of ether and the art of monitoring blood color for oxygenation have been replaced with precise concentrations of inhaled anesthetic and continuous pulse oximetry. It is on the shoulders of our predecessors that we stand today as anesthesiologists. We must constantly evolve to adapt to an ever-changing medical profession. It is this spirit and mind-set that will allow the field of anesthesiology to continue to advance and improve the care of our patients...

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William Thomas Green Morton, the man most commonly associated with the introduction of anesthesia in 1846, fathered William James Morton. William James Morton's contributions to society were substantial. He conducted pioneering work in radiology, radiation oncology, and therapeutic electricity. He authored numerous textbooks and articles, and he was an editor of a journal on human behavior. His expertise on diamond mining led to an error in judgment that resulted in a felony conviction. We examine his career and contributions to society, and consider his career in light of his father, William Thomas Green Morton...

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Success with the medical management of pain grew tremendously after William Thomas Green Morton's successful demonstration of surgical anesthesia in 1846: Henry K. Beecher's clinical and experimental contributions to anesthesia during and after World War II had a profound impact on how clinicians and experimentalists study human populations in medicine. Beecher found that pain research required human subjects because pain was different for each individual. Nearly 100 years before Beecher, Claude Bernard similarly considered the complexity and uniqueness of human research subjects...

Because daguerreotype photographs are usually reversed laterally from actuality, images of W.TG. Morton falsely suggest that he sometimes changed the side of the part in his hair. Because of daguerreotype image reversal, a statue of Apollo in the Ether Dome at the Massachusetts General Hospital appears to have been moved for the 50th anniversary of Ether Day.

INTRODUCTION: Anesthesia historians believe they have difficulty in getting their work published in peer reviewed journals devoted to anesthesiology. To test the hypothesis of whether such publication bias exists, we conducted a review of all articles published in six journals. METHODS: We examined all articles published between January 2001 and December 2010. In order to enable comparison among journals, articles were categorized as major or minor. We also examined whether there were trends in publication over this period...

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