Did you know the first operation with anaesthesia was carried out using laughing gas?

Although the first operation with anaesthetic was carried out by the surgeon John C. Warren and the dentist William T.G. Morton on the 16th of October, 1846 – in an event know as “the ether day”, a few years prior to this a gas had already been used with anaesthetic effects to alleviate the pain of medical operations. A dentist called Horace Wells had also carried out this operation out. 

Horace wells and laughing gas

Horace Wells, a dentist from the city of Hartford, attended a conference in 1844, at which a medical student (Gardner Colton) wanted to show the effects caused by nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas. Wells, on seeing that one of the participants had hit his leg and did not seem to feel any pain, believed that this gas could be a solution to alleviate his patients’ pain when he carried out extractions. 

However, and in spite of the fact that Wells carried out several painless extractions, a chemist from the city warned him of the danger of using nitrous oxide. Amongst other questions, the lack of oxygen reaching the brain could cause fainting spells and even respiratory arrest. 

Even so, Wells informed a former apprentice William Morton, of his advances, and he took him before a medical audience at the University of Harvard to carry out a demonstration, but the intervention was a complete disaster. 

Morton continued to carry out some experiments on his own behalf, until he found another gas –ether, which, two years later and after several experiments with animals and humans, was found to work as an anaesthetic. 

He gave it a public trial, in the same amphitheatre of the Harvard Medical School, with a patient who had a tumour on his neck. After inhaling the gas, the patient became unconscious and the operation was carried out without any problems.