ABSTRACT
The first use of an intravenous crystalloid solution was during the cholera epidemic in the 1830s in Great Britain. The pathophysiology of cholera was not known and there was no current treatment. William Brooke O’Shaughnessy, a young doctor of 22, was the first to publish guidelines in the Lancet in December 1831. He observed that the blood from patients in the late stages of cholera was thick and black, and drew the conclusion that the ‘‘blood had lost a large proportion of water’’ (1). Thomas Latta, subsequently following these observations, became the first to administer intravenous injections of salt and water to the dying patients.
