Most Important Medical Advancement Of The Nineteenth Century Essay Example

There was a time when the knife in surgeons hand caused a panic death of the patients. It is very difficult to explain today, how much the medical science advanced or how much the surgical practice gained from the invention of medical anaesthesia that gave the patients the experience of painless operation.
Ether, a chemical substance was applied for the first time for medical anaesthesia on 16 October 1846 in surgery, by its inventor William Morton, at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston to operate the lump of a patient by surgeon John Warren. Invention of ether anaesthesia in surgical practice was a major development that brought a remarkable change towards medical advancement.
Before the anaesthesia was invented, or introduced in surgery, the surgeons had to perform and complete their surgery in haste because in many cases of surgery and operations in some areas of human body like abdomen, brain, chest, the surgeons had to operate their panic struck and screaming patients as quickly as possible and so, the accuracy level in surgery was low and even resulted in patient`s death in a panic on the operation table.
Introduction of anaesthesia in surgical practice eased the process of surgery from the point of view of the surgeons as well as from the patients, and it enabled the surgeons to operate with higher accuracy even in the areas (e.g. brain, heart etc.) which were inaccessible without anaesthesia.
After invention of Chloroform as anaesthesia in 1847, by James Simpson, the inhalation agent was popularly applied in surgery and easy application method of the substance, enabled the surgeons to operate an unconscious patient with no trouble. Since then, the science of anaesthesia improved further and replacing the older techniques today local anaesthesias are applied in modern surgical practices, but, still in the surgical operations, anaesthesia is inseparable and the invention of anaesthesia in the nineteenth century is a milestone for medical advancement.

Reference:

The History of Anaesthesia, The Royal College of Anaesthetists, Retrieved from: http://www.rcoa.ac.uk/about-the-college/history-of-anaesthesia. 8 July. 2014.