In olden times the Chinese used to give patients a mixture of strong wine and herbal drugs derived from the mandrake plat, to alleviate the excruciating pain of surgery. They Greeks and Romans also used mandrake extracts.
Opium and alcohol were the most commonly used natural anaesthetics in ancient Europe. In 1844, an America dentist named Horace Wells introduced nitrous oxide for pain relief during dental surgery with his colleague, William T. G. Morton.
In 1846, Morton used ether to anaesthetize a patient undergoing neck tumour removal surgery. Sir James Young Simpson, a British obstetrician is remembered best for his introduction of ether anaesthesia into obstetrics in 1847.
For many years, Morton was credited as being the pioneer of general anaesthesia, although the claim is disputable. Many think that it was Crawford W. Long who first initiated general anaesthesia.
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