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13. Early attempts at putting patients to sleep were often unsuccessful – patients sometimes woke up or never woke up at all.
Before modern anesthetics, surgeons used a variety of methods to try and reduce a patient’s pain. In many cases, the patient was simply given large doses of gin or whisky in the hope that they would pass out from drunkenness. Other surgeons preferred to try a range of herbs or even narcotics, such as opium imported from the East. While alcohol was usually ineffective, opiates sometimes were too effective – indeed, instances of patients dying from a drug’s overdose having only gone into hospital to have a limb amputated were shockingly commonplace.
In 1845, British surgeons first tried to use nitrous oxide as a general anesthetic. The scientist who discovered ‘laughing gas’, Humphrey Davy, learned that, as well as giving him and his assistants the giggles, it also made them feel less pain. However, the very first time it was tried on a patient undergoing surgery, the patient woke up mid-procedure. The idea was quickly abandoned. Some years later, James Simpson pioneered the use of chloroform. This was administered by inhalation and was used to knock patients unconscious. It remained in use until the 1920s. While often effective, however, patients sometimes still woke up screaming in agony.