Anaesthesia - History

Anesthesia plays a very important role in the field of medical surgery. One cannot possibly think of undergoing a surgery without being anesthetized. Before the discovery of the various anesthetic agents people underwent severe pain and agony. Patients were strapped down or were given alcohol and other sedative drugs to ameliorate the pain of surgery. Surgery sans pain would have remained a dream of the yester years if not for anesthesia, which has now made it a reachable reality!

Various anesthetic drugs like alcohol, opium (poppy), hyoscine, cannabis (hemp), cocaine were all used in the by gone era to relive pain. But till date it is the structure of morphine (opium alkaloids) that serves as a model for the synthesis of other modern synthetic anesthetic agents.