16 October 1846
The first successful public demonstration of general anesthesia by William Thomas Green Morton.
I was often asked what specialty I am in. When I mentioned anaesthesia, many are often curious of what does it means or is it all that I do? As an anaesthetist, apart from managing anaesthesia for surgical patients, we are also involved in patient care in the intensive care unit, acute and chronic pain management and obstetric analgesia service. It is a young specialty as compared to other specialty, and very often the general population are not aware of it. That is why now, 16th October is celebrated as anaesthesia day...one of the aim is the increase the pubic awareness and knowledge. It is the day when William G Morton first did a public demonstration of anaesthesia....
Quite an interesting reading on anaesthesia is on Wikipedia
Anesthesia, or anaesthesia (see spelling differences; from Greek αν-, an-, "without"; and αἲσθησις, aisthēsis, "sensation"), has traditionally meant the condition of having sensation (including the feeling of pain) blocked. This allows patients to undergo surgery and other procedures without the distress and pain they would otherwise experience. The word was coined by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. in 1846. Another definition is a "reversible lack of awareness", whether this is a total lack of awareness (e.g. a general anaesthestic) or a lack of awareness of a part of a the body such as a spinal anaesthetic or another nerve block would cause. Anesthesia differs from analgesia in blocking all sensation, not only pain...............taken from wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anesthesia
