Where and how does the anesthetic process help or hurt patients independent of producing Anesthesia?

Abstract

This chapter provides exemplars of good and bad outcomes that can result from anesthesia and anesthetists. In the 1850s, Snow determined that chloroform could kill by cardiac syncope. In the 1930s, Lundy guided the banking and administration of blood, and Lundy and Rovenstine established pain clinics. In the 1970s, Bonica established pain as a subspecialty. Ibsen's response to the terrible 1952 Copenhagen polio epidemic, manual support of breathing, led to intensive care units, ventilator development, and the creation of modern blood-gas analysis by Astrup and Severinghaus. In 1953, Apgar devised her score, a number describing the neonate's condition. In 1956, Lassen showed the lethality of prolonged nitrous oxide administration. Later investigators suggested health hazards to occupational exposure to nitrous oxide.