All About Anesthesia

If you’ve ever had a surgery or even a minor procedure, you’ve probably benefited from the medical marvel of anesthesia—the treatment that doctors, called anesthesiologists, give to keep you from feeling pain. And it’s come a long way since the discovery of diethyl ether. Here we dive into the different types, its history, and the way it works. The chemistry of anesthetics has advanced since the 1840s, producing different types of anesthesia depending on the compounds involved. See more chemistry infographics like this one in C&EN’s Periodic Graphics collection. Click to enlarge. Types of Anesthesia Anesthetics—drugs that cause anesthesia—are divided into four categories based on the level and intensity of their effects: Sedatives relax the patient and make them drowsy but don’t cause them to lose consciousness.Local anesthetics, as the name implies, only numb a small, local area of the body. They’re useful for dental operations or other localized procedures.Regional anesthetics numb a larger area of the body. Epidurals are common regional anesthetics, numbing a patient from the waist down.General anesthetics are the most intense type, causing the patient to become unconscious and lose all sensation. The History of Anesthesia In the early 1840s, doctors first anesthetized patients by having them breathe in the gases of diethyl ether. It was used during surgeries despite its side effects of nausea and vomiting afterwardâ...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmacology Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs