Anesthesia was in its infancy when the American Civil War began in 1861. The sheer number of casualties gave surgeons on both sides the opportunity to gain experience with the first two anesthetic ...

One of the greatest benefits that scientists have wrested from nature for the benefit of humankind is anesthesia to take away the pain of surgery and tooth extraction. Julie M. Fenster, a columnist ...

Anesthesia was in its infancy when the American Civil War began. Using case studies of two wounded soldiers, a private and a general, an anesthesiologist reports on its early use. Anesthesia was in ...

Editor's Note: Shauna Devine, Ph.D., is a historian of Civil War and American medicine. She has a Ph.D. in medical history and currently holds a joint appointment as a research fellow at the Schulich ...

Childbirth without an epidural? For many women the idea isn’t pleasant, though before the mid-19th century there was no alternative. An entertaining post on the medical history blog The Chirurgeon’s ...

Scientists from Scripps Research have shown how anesthetics cause clusters of lipids in the cell membrane to break apart, triggering downstream processes that lead to a loss of consciousness. Share on ...