ABSTRACT

General anesthesia for dental extractions has a long and interesting history. In 1844,a dentist, Horace Wells, saw a demonstration by Gardner QColton, a traveling chemist, of the effects of inhaling nitrous oxide. He noted that a young shop assistant under the influence of the gas knocked his shin and made it bleed but stated that he felt no pain. Wellsthen persuaded Colton to use nitrous oxide the next day for a dental extraction, with Wells as the patient, and it was a big success - "a new era in tooth pulling:' This is vividly described, with extracts from contemporary reports and biographical details of those involved, in a chapter entitled "The crucial experiment, its eclipse and its revival" in Denis Smith's fascinating book on the history of nitrous oxide anesthesia. 1,2

The first public and successful demonstration of ether anesthesia took place at the Massachusetts General Hospital on Friday 16 October 1846 when William Morton, a Boston dentist, used it for the painless removal of a tumor from a patient's neck. Then, when the news of the use of ether for anesthesia first arrived in London by means of a letter from Jacob Bigelowto Francis Boott, Boott arranged with James Robinson, a friend who was a dentist, to carry out their own experiments. The first use in the UK, following on from these experiments, was for the painless extraction of a wisdom tooth. In 1983, Ellis, of St Bartholomew's Hospital, procured the publication of a facsimile edition of James Robinson's 1847 A Treatise on the Inhalation of the Vapour of Etherfor the Prevention of Pain in Surgical Operations. This gives a fascinating description of these innovative efforts.'