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Podcast: Anesthesiology News Presents
Episode: The Etherist—Season 3 Prologue: No Laughing Matter
Description: Before the discovery of ether anesthesia, surgery was an excruciating experience for patients, their loved ones and even the surgeons who performed the operations.In the 1840s, an important scientific breakthrough changed the course of medical history—the discovery of anesthesia. However, over several decades leading up to that historic discovery, the potential for less painful surgery existed without anyone managing to connect the dots between a series of scientific developments with nitrous oxide and the need for anesthesia in surgery. Those decades presented a stark missed opportunity for all surgery patients of the time, and a tr...