Anaesthetics

• Who discovered chloroform and what was it used for?

  James Simpson - used to ease pain of childbirth
• Why were people worried about chloroform?

  • some surgeons preferred patients to stay awake and fight for their lives
  • religious people believed God intended childbirth to be painful
  • Hannah Greener died during an operation after being given too much chloroform
• What was the black period of surgery?

  when surgeons carried out longer and more complex surgeries as pain relief was now available, led to infections developing deeper in the body, more blood loss and an increase in deaths between 1850s and 1870s
• When did Simpson discover chloroform could be used an anaesthetic?

  1847
• How did the use of chloroform become more accepted?

  Queen Victoria used it during the birth of one of her children in 1854