A history of neuroanesthesia

Abstract

Many countries practiced trephination from 10,000 BCE. Cocaine spat in the wound may have minimized pain in Peru. Alcohol, laudanum, henbane, opium or lettuces may have been used in other countries. The 1,700 BCE Edwin Smith Papyrus described the effects of central nervous system trauma. Surgeons pioneered neurosurgical anesthesia. Horsley in the UK preferred chloroform, and with physical chemist Harcourt, he constructed a vaporizer for chloroform delivery. The Scot Macewen developed metal tubes for tracheal intubation in 1878, and he trained his residents in anesthesia. Cannon monitored intracranial pressure (ICP) in 1901. In the early 1900s, Krause fathered German neurosurgery and introduced operations to treat epilepsy.