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 ...

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 ...

1847 Sir James Young Simpson a Scottish physician introduced chloroform as an anesthetic agent during childbirth. Chloroform was first used on Queen Victoria, during her eighth delivery. 1847 Edward H ...

The man accused of killing 3-year-old Mariah Woods is alleged to have used chloroform. Chloroform was invented in the 1830s and among its original uses was in surgery as an anesthetic. The anesthetic ...

The common use of anesthetic agents came of age during the American Civil War, as battlefield medicine translated to civilian use. "Prior to the war, alcoholic drinks, physical restraints, opioid ...

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 ...

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 ...

2700 BC Shen Nung the second Chinese emperor tested the effects of 300 drugs on himself and explained the narcotic properties of the Kemp plant. 1350 BC The soporific and aphrodisiac properties of the ...