Humphry Davy, a British chemist, was known for experimenting with the compound on himself. One of his most notable experiments took place outside Bristol in 1799, where he saturated his system with nitrate of ammonia and then recorded his feelings - his findings were similar to what one may experience on Laughing Gas: euphoria, a general absence of self-awareness and pain, and numbness.

At first, the use of this compound was not actually used in surgery. Instead, it was a commodity of sorts, with people volunteering to undergo the sensation if Davy were allowed to research their reactions. Over time, the commodity wore off but Davy's findings were incredibly significant as he found Nitrous oxide could essentially eliminate pain for a period of time. This finding would prove incredibly applicable to the future of pain management and surgery.

(1): https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history-science-technology-medicine/humphry-davy-laughing-gas-and-the-era-self-experimentation

Long administered the anesthetic in Georgia to James Venable to remove two small tumors on the back of his neck. At the time, ethyr was inhaled via a towel pressed over the patient's face and was inhaled multiple times throughout the procedure.

Long repeatedly used ether throughout the 1840s to operate on patients and began to learn that longer operations needed more ether, or a more powerful compound, as it had an end point.

(1): https://ugapress.manifoldapp.org/system/actioncallout/4f2530c4-f089-41d7-8792-6c36684adec5/attachment/original-cd5145bfc144430dc06aa43ebf01eead.pdf

In October 1846, the first surgery under ether was performed publicly in Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston, Mass., by Dr. John Collins Warren. Warren successfully removed a tumor from William Morton without pain. This event marked the first public usage, and since then, administering ether in a surgical capacity became more frequent.

This usage, however, also expanded into other fields such as neurobiology, prompting many scientists to research other compounds and their impact on pain. receptors throughout the body. Morton's success post-surgery and Dr. Warren's successful operation accelerated research on pain reception and blocks.

(1): https://www.massgeneral.org/assets/MGH/images/museum/ether-dome.jpg

(2): https://www.massgeneral.org/museum/exhibits/ether-dome

(3): https://ugapress.manifoldapp.org/system/actioncallout/4f2530c4-f089-41d7-8792-6c36684adec5/attachment/original-cd5145bfc144430dc06aa43ebf01eead.pdf

On April 7, 1853, in Buckingham Palace, Dr. John Snow administered chloroform to the queen to which she expressed "great relief" upon its usage. The chloroform was administered via a light handkerchief and most notably, the queen did not appear out of sorts or loopy, like how Davy had appeared under the usage of Nitrous Oxide. This use of "light sedation" was groundbreaking in pain management as it enabled an individual to reduce pain without fully reducing consciousness.

(1): https://www.ogmagazine.org.au/18/1-18/victorias-secret-chloroform-acceptability-analgesia-birth/

(2): https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GFdjEiWa4AAbF9k.jpg

Dr. Koller was an ophthalmologist from Vienna and a colleague of Sigmund Freud. It is said that Freud "quietly revolutionized eye surgery by suggesting to the ophthalmologist Carl Koller that cocaine could be used as an anaesthetic." And, like the quotation, that is exactly what Koller did. He placed a cocaine solution in the cornea of a patient in Austria, and witnessed how it only reduced pain in the area applied, rather than the entire body (which inhaling ether and chloroform did).

Although incredibly controversial, its findings cannot go unnoticed. Koller was the first known to reduce pain in a specific region, introducing the beginnings of nerve/pain blocks.

(1): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22531385/

(2): https://academic.oup.com/brain/article-abstract/147/9/e62/7682512?redirectedFrom=fulltext

(3): https://wcsa.world/Userfiles/Upload/images/12656202324_bccb585d3e_z.jpg

As previously seen, anesthesia in the 1800s was used relatively unregulated - the only way to know if a patient felt pain was for them to announce it, and it was administered most commonly through inhalation from a towel placed over the mouth.

Now, modern anesthesiologists utilize technology like a Biospectral Index (BIS) monitor to track a patient's level of consciousness throughout the surgery. This prevents the patient from waking up mid-operation and experiencing pain, and allows the anesthesiologist to put the patient under heavy, light, or no sedation.

BIS mintors utilize a numerical scale of 0-100 which is constantly changing depending on the stage of consciousness the patient is in. These monitors were not introduced until the mid 1900s, however they have quickly become widely used and instrumental in streamlinging surgeries.

The usage of BIS in the modern day represents just how far we have come as a society in not only the administration of anesthesia but also the science of consciousness and sleep-like states.

(1): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK539809/

(2): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3387745/

(3): https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/BIS_JPN.jpg

I would pick Dr. Crawford Long, as discussed in entry #2 to be the guide for this mini-museum.

Long was Georgia born and raised, and performed his groundbreaking ether surgery March 30, 1842. Although ether was not widely used until the surgery done at MGH in 1846, that surgery would not have been done if it were not for Dr. Long and his successes in Georgia!

Dr. Crawford Long would provide incredibly insight in guiding this exhibit as all subsequent usages of anesthesia and research really would not have been possible without him. He redfinied the world of pain, consciousness, and surgical possibilities by doing something no one was willing to do at the time. He bridged the gap between theory and guesswork to actual application.

(1): https://www.med.upenn.edu/psom/assets/image-cache/user-content/images/portraits/jmb-longcw-laheyr.5c68ae01.jpg