Early days of anaesthesia and the BMJ

The BMJ ’s first mention of anaesthesia appears in January 1847, some three or four months after William Morton successfully anaesthetised a patient for excision of a neck tumour at Massachusetts General Hospital. George Edwards described the case of an above knee amputation under ether anaesthesia performed on a young woman of highly nervous temperament who “dreaded the pain of the operation exceedingly.”1 Consequently, it was deemed “a favourable opportunity to test the efficacy of this new discovery.” A chemist assisted in the preparation of the ether and its administration, and the young …