Surgery before and after the discovery of anesthesia

Abstract

Long before the advent of anesthesia, operations relied on a detailed knowledge of anatomy gained by dissection of the dead. Morton's demonstration of ether anesthesia on 16 Oct 1846 made planned surgery possible, that is surgery in a silent motionless patient. Thus began the era of the great surgeons of Europe (Billroth, Kocher, Torek) and the US (Sims, Halsted, Cushing). Supporting discoveries added to the advances: Lister used antisepsis with carbolic acid spray (1867); Macewen intubated the trachea (1870s); Roentgen discovered X-rays (1895); Landsteiner identified blood groups (1900) and Domagk synthesized sulfonamides (1932).