By Tim Lambert
The word anaesthesia is derived from Greek words meaning without feeling or sensation. The word was used in England by the early 18th century. However, it wasn’t used to mean lack of pain during an operation until 1846.
Before the advent of modern anaesthesia, there were ways of dulling pain. In England in the Middle Ages, surgeons used a mixture called dwale. It contained ingredients like opium, henbane, hemlock and juice. Dwale was sometimes a drink, but sometimes a sponge was soaked in the mixture and placed under the patient’s nose to make them unconscious. It was called a soporific sponge. They were used until the 19th century.
In the 16th century, the great surgeon Paracelsus invented laudanum, a pill of opium and other substances. It could be taken for pain. In the late 17th century, Laudanum was changed to just opium mixed with alcohol by Thomas Sydenham. It was used to treat pain and sleeplessness.
However, the era of modern anaesthesia began in the 19th century. As early as 1799, the inventor Humphry Davy (1778-1829) realised that inhaling ether relieved pain. Unfortunately, decades passed before it was used in operations. The era of modern anaesthetics began on 30 March 1842 when surgeon Crawford Long used ether during an operation.
In 1846 American dentist T G Morton demonstrated the use of ether in an operation to remove a tumour on a jaw. It was the first public demonstration of ether as an anaesthetic. In 1846 surgeon Robert Liston became the first man in Britain to operate with anaesthesia. (It was a leg amputation). Ether (a liquid) was poured onto a cloth, which was placed over the patient’s face.
Meanwhile, people had discovered that nitrous oxide reduced pain. In 1844, an American dentist called Horace Wells used it as an anaesthetic.
Chloroform was discovered in 1831. On 9 November 1847, Dr James Young Simpson used chloroform on a mother giving birth for the first time. Wilhelmina Carstairs became the first child to be delivered using anaesthesia. On 12 November 1847 chloroform was first publicly demonstrated by James Simpson.
Morphine was invented by Friedrich Sertürner in 1804, but it was not commonly used until hypodermic needles were invented in the 1850s. In 1884, cocaine was used as a local anesthetic. From 1905, Novocain was used.
Aspirin was patented on 6 March 1899. Paracetamol went on sale in the USA in 1950 and in Britain in 1956.
Last revised 2026