History of the development of general anaesthesia in Malta

Abstract

Anaestheisa (an meaning absence and aesthesia meaning sensation) was a new word coined by Oliver Wendell Holmes, the same doctor who wrote the stories of the detective Sherlock Holmes The science of anaesthesia means the inducement of a state of reversible unconsciousness and analgesia by means of drugs thus enabling the performance of surgery. Before the introduction of the science of anaesthesia the only surgery possible was that which could be done in a few minutes with the patient suffering intense pain and needing physical force to be kept lying down on the operating table. After the start of the anaesthetic process, surgery advanced by leaps and bounds during the last one hundred and sixty years. Really the new science enhanced the full development of surgery.