Crawford Long and Surgical Anesthesia

Hi everyone,

Well, off with a late blog start, I have noidea how these blog things work!!!!!!!
Took me long enough to invite everyone...Any how...........
Just a short summary of my presentation please excuse my grammar:


-The Beggining-
The usage of herbs to relieve pain is recorded as early as 150 A.D. They weren't used in surgeries and that meant surgeries were very painful (I can't even imagine how painful it would be).

-In 1275, Spanish alchemist invented ether but didn't do anything with it.
-In 1605, Swiss physician employed ether to relieve pain from a patient but doesn't get developed into surgical anesthesia.
-In 1772, English chemist discovers nitrous oxide, aka laughing gas, who does not find it as anesthetic agent.
-In 1800, Humphrey Davy published a book which discussed enormous details about nitrous oxide. As well as this, number of astonishing works he accomplish grants him the hail of other people as a genius. But he does not develope it further and so nitrous oxide does not yet get used as anesthesia.


-The Race to Hall of Fame-
The article mentions 4 men battling to be named the discoverer of ether. Although after a long debate of 16 years Crawford Long was named the discoverer, some still thinks that Morton should be named the discoverer as it was Morton who showed ether to the world not Long. They say Long was only the first one to use it as anesthesia but it would be meaningless if Morton did not show it to the world and if Long didn't publish his findings.

Crawford Long-> honest, so dedicated to patients that he was late for his wedding, first to use ether to remove cyst from a patient who felt no pain, successfully treated number of patients with ether.
Charles Jackson-> saw Long using ether to treat patients, came back and reported that he have discovered ether first but people doubted him as he have previously made false claims that other people have found.
William Morton-> with Jackson created whats called 'Letheon', which was just a ether mixed with aromatic oils and tried to patent it. He managed to show other people that ether works as anesthesia.
Horace Wells-> smart but unstable man, accidently found nitrous oxide can relieve pain and be used as anesthesia but failled to show infront of other people.

While Jackson, Morton and Wells claiming to have discovered ether first, Long didn't want to get involved with media so at first he did not fight with the others. Later he was named the discoverer.


-After discovery-
After the discovery of ether and nitrous oxide to use as anesthesia, more gases were developed that could also be used as anesthesia. Many were developed specially around World War I. The gases were also test and developed so they can be less harmful to human body. Various medical equipments have been developed to help inhaling of gases as well.


Most fundamental question of all-> "How does the administration of ether lead to unconsciousness and lack of awareness of any sort of pain".
This is still, yet to be answered.


-Economic side-
Guess the economic side of this article (after all this is an econ paper despite all the medical stuff we are doing lol) for me is that Morton trying to patent his findings so he can make fortune out of it. As well, the others wanted the title 'the discoverer' because you can patent it and have trouble free life until you die...like monopoly?
But they fail to do so and it is used everywhere. I believe socially this is the better scenario as if it was patented and became so expensive that only the rich can
use, then how would the surgeries be done? Still the same way they use to with no anesthesia?
It is because ether was used widely and fast that it was developed fast and we have what we have now.