Surgery may not give a good impression to most people, but it has saved countless lives. Did you know that the history of surgery is beyond imagination. From Mesopotamia to Egypt, from India to China, and even the early civilizations in Africa and America, there are records of surgical operations. However, in the long history of human beings, surgery is a ghost gate. Compared with today, the accumulation of anesthesia, hemostasis and anti infection technologies in ancient society is seriously insufficient, especially anesthesia technology, which makes surgery almost the same as torture. In the final analysis, there is a lack of effective and safe use of narcotic drugs.
So, what does the ancient anesthetic look like? How does the anesthetic develop? How does chemistry and anesthesiology combine? Let's take a look at the close relationship between chemistry and medicine in anesthesia technology through this article.
Ancient oriental anesthetics
From classical novels
To introduce ancient anesthetics, we can start with classical novels. We know that among the four famous Chinese classical novels, "the Water Margin" is the earliest one. This novel records the early narcotics.
In the outlaws of the marsh, Chao Gai and Wu Yong and others used what kind of means? They designed to let Yang Zhi and his party, who escorted shengchengang, drink the wine with Mongolian medicine. As a result, Yang Zhi & hellip & hellip; was too soft to struggle with; the 15 people who were escorting the birth program together & hellip & hellip; just couldn't get up, earn or say no. &There is also a section called "cross slope". Sun er'niang also used the liquor with Mongolian medicine, and Ma turned over the tolerance of escorting Wusong. She wanted to be a human flesh bun, but Wusong saw through it, so she led to the later story. Mongolian sweat medicine is an ancient anesthetic.
It is generally believed that the Mongolian sweat medicine is made from the flowers of Datura after drying and grinding into fine powder. Since the Song Dynasty, there have been records of using Mongolian medicine to kill people. Therefore, it is not surprising that there are records of Mongolian medicine in the novels formed in the Yuan Dynasty. At the latest in the Qing Dynasty, it was also true that some people used Mongolian sweat drugs to anesthetize and treat wounds for soldiers. However, this drug is not safe, nor can it make people completely unconscious, relax muscles, so as to operate safely. In addition, ancient Chinese surgery was mostly limited to trauma treatment, and ancient Chinese physicians rarely used this medicine.
When it comes to Chinese medicine, we can't help mentioning Huatuo who invented mabeisan. According to the records of the Three Kingdoms, & ldquo; if the disease accumulates, and the acupuncture and medicine cannot reach it, those who need to be cut will drink their Ma Zesan, and they will be drunk for a moment. &There are different opinions on the ingredients of mabeisan. It is generally believed that there are drugs such as Angelica dahurica, Radix Aconiti, angelica and Aconitum. In addition, despite the loss of azeotrope, ancient Chinese medical books do not lack the records of narcotic drugs, which are far more complex and more practical than Mongolian medicine.
In 1805, after learning from the experience of ancient Chinese medicine and Western medicine, Japanese doctor Takaoka Qingzhou invented the anaesthetic "azeotrope", and successfully carried out breast cancer surgery, which was later used in surgery for malignant tumors, hemorrhoids and so on. Huagang Qingzhou's operation is the first general anesthesia operation with exact operation record in the world. However, azeotrope is an extremely dangerous drug, and its formulation is difficult to master, which limits its further application.
Modern western anesthetics
From the discovery of Chemistry
Like the East, the ancient West also had many herbs for anesthesia. The most common is opium, which is used in Mesopotamia and Egyptian civilization. Later, there were similar records of famous Greek and Roman doctors such as Hippocrates and Galen. In the late Middle Ages, Arabic medicine developed rapidly. Zahrawi, the famous founder of surgery, and Ibn Sina, the chemist, recorded the early general anesthesia and inhalation anesthesia respectively. However, these findings did not make painless surgery really develop, until the emergence of modern chemistry, this problem was really solved.
In the 18th century, with the development of chemistry, human beings obtained a lot of pure substances. Among them, a gas called nitrous oxide began to be noticed. In 1772, Priestley discovered nitrous oxide, and in another study, David accidentally discovered the anesthetic properties of nitrous oxide. As a result, David created the nickname "laughing gas" for nitrous oxide. He was also the first person to record the analgesic effect of "laughing gas" and its potential benefits in relieving pain during surgery. Later, "laughing gas" was gradually used in the United States as a medical anaesthetic for dental extraction. Because the anesthesia ability of & ldquo; laughing gas & rdquo; is weak, a small amount of inhalation will not cause confusion, but will lose pain, which is quite suitable for dental anesthesia. In 1844, Welsh, an American dentist, took advantage of "laughing gas" for the first time. Today, however, it is found that & ldquo; laughing gas & rdquo; can cause brain damage and hypoxia when used, but this does not prevent & ldquo; laughing gas & rdquo; from becoming an early anesthetic.
&After people pay attention to "laughing gas", ether has come into people's view. In 1842, two doctors in the United States performed anesthesia operations with ether. One doctor, Clark, pulled out the tooth, while the other, Lang, had a neck tumor removed. However, it's a little strange that the two doctors didn't publish the operation immediately, but they didn't publish the relevant papers until many years later. In 1846, Morton, an American physician, also performed a series of general anesthesia operations with ether, which was quickly published. The function of ether was only widely known. At present, due to the long recovery period of ether and