HISTNEUR-L: The History of Neuroscience Internet Forum

Calendar: "February in Anesthesia History"

• Date:   Tue, 6 Feb 2001 08:23:47 -0800 (Pacific Standard Time)
• To:   histneur-l@library.ucla.edu
• From:   Russell A. Johnson <rjohnson@library.ucla.edu>
• Subject:   Calendar: "February in Anesthesia History"
• Message-ID:   SIMEON.10102060847.E@bio-s-his008.library.ucla.edu

I am forwarding this to HISTNEUR-L from ANES-HIST because there are 
entries on several monthly calendars--as well as links from the 
Anesthesia History Files--which will be of interest to readers on this 
list.

Russell Johnson


--- Begin Forwarded Message ---
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 09:20:22 -0600
From: "A.J. Wright" 
Subject: February in Anesthesia History
Sender: History of Anesthesiology 


The full Anesthesia History Calendar can be found at
http://www.anes.uab.edu/aneshist/calendar.htm

Additions/corrections are welcome; send to

A.J. Wright, MLS
Dept of Anesthesiology Library
School of Medicine
University of Alabama at Birmingham
ajwright@uab.edu

Anesthesia History Files
http://www.anes.uab.edu/aneshist/aneshist.htm


1723 February 25: Christopher Wren dies in London. Around 1660 the English
architect and astronomer began to experiment with the transfusion of blood
between animals and intravenous injections into animals. An account of his
work was published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of
London in 1665. Wren died in London in February, 1723.

1804 February 6: Joseph Priestley dies in Northumberland, Pennsylvania.
Among many other achievements, this English Unitarian minister and scientist
isolated nitrous oxide. In 1774 Priestley wrote about his research on gases,
"I cannot help flattering myself that, in time, very great medicinal use
will be made of the application of these different kinds of airs..."
[Priestley J. Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Airs. 6
vols. 1:228, 1774]

1814 February 7: Gardner Quincy Colton born in Georgia, Vermont. Colton
introduced nitrous oxide to Horace Wells, among other achievements.

1824 February 21: Henry Hill Hickman writes a letter to T.A. Knight
describing his experiments with painless surgery on animals using carbon
dioxide as an anesthetic.

1829 February 15: Silas Weir Mitchell born. American surgeon, neurologist,
novelist and poet who explored the relationship between pain and the weather
and eye strain to headaches.

1873 February 1: First documented death from nitrous oxide inhalation in
Great Britain reported in this issue of Lancet.

1874 February 9: Ore administers first intravenous general anesthesia in
humans in modern times.

1878 February 10: Claude Bernard, French physiologist, dies. Bernard's
classic work, Lectures on Anesthetics and on Asphyxia [1875], is available
from the Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology in a fine translation by B.
Raymond Fink, MD, published in 1989.

1884 February 26: Scottish physician Alexander Wood dies. Wood introduced
the hypodermic syringe for drug administration.

1908 February 22: A.D. Waller describes his chloroform balance at a meeting
of the Physiological Society in London. This apparatus was the first to give
a continuous and almost instantaneous reading of the concentration of vapor
received by the patient.

1938 February:The American Board of Anesthesiology becomes affiliated with
the American Board of Surgery.

1941 February 16: The American Board of Anesthesiology achieves independent
status.
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