Throughout his life, all people at least several times suffer from any diseases. Usually they are treated with medicines, but in some cases surgical operations are necessary. Today there is nothing terrible in them, because in the course of such interventions, patients are under anesthesia and do not feel pain. If the operation holds a professional, it passes successfully and the person recover. But in ancient times, there were no effective painkillers, and surgical operations, despite this, were carried out. In some cases, patients simply have tolerated until the doctors disable them the affected organ. And sometimes for anesthesia, methods that today may seem wild to us. For example, some doctors before the operation simply hit the patient on the head so that he would lose consciousness for a while and did not feel anything. But really there were no more humane methods of anesthesia? Of course, they existed.
How does anesthesia work?
From a scientific point of view, the anesthesia is an artificial inhibition of the central nervous system, in which the person disappears the sensitivity to pain. Anesthesia is local and common. In the first case, the pain disappears only in a certain section of the body, and in the second the person loses consciousness and does not feel anything. The effect occurs when the introduction into the body of painkillers, the dose of which is calculated by a anesthesiologist. The ratio and concentration of anesthetics depends on the type of surgery and the individual characteristics of the patient.
If we speak in simple, painkillers do not allow nerve cells to transmit information about pain in the brain. These tools can be introduced into the human body or with a syringe, or using the inhaler. At the moment there are many types of anesthesia and thoughtlessly use each of them is categorically impossible. The fact is that some types of anesthetic people simply may not be transferred. Therefore, an individual approach is needed to each patient.
See also: 10 myths about operations and surgeons
Anesthesia in antiquity
In ancient times, people were poorly understood in the principles of the human body. Therefore, that during the operation a person did not commit sharp movements and did not suffer, in medieval Europe, on his head, hit the hammer. The patient lost consciousness and did not feel anything, but in some cases a blow could simply lead to his death. Sometimes the patients opened the veins and allowed blood until he fainted. But in this case, there was always a risk of death of a person from losing a large amount of blood. Since all these kinds of anesthesia were dangerous, over time they decided to abandon them.
Sometimes surgical operations were carried out on patients who are conscious. So that they do not move and did not interfere with the surgeon, their hands and legs firmly contacted. Perhaps in your imagination already arose a terrible picture, where a person suffers from terrible pain while surgeons torment his body. The picture is quite realistic, because in some cases everything looked. So that patients suffer less, surgeons tried to carry out operations as quickly as possible. For example, the Russian surgeon Nikolai Pirogov could carry out a leg amputation in just 4 minutes. There is also information that the removal of the mammary glands in women was spent in 1.5 minutes.
The first painkillers in the world
While in medieval Europe, patients beat or literally tortured, some of the peoples still tried to insulat the painkillers. You probably know that in ancient times, many shamans often were in a state of narcotic intoxication. So, some of them chewed the leaves of Coca (of which the drugs of cocaine are manufactured) and they spoiled them on the affected seats of wounded people. The anesthetic effect was really felt, but in distant times, the shamans did not know, which is why it is happening. They must have considered the removal of the gift of the gods.
Science was constantly evolving and at one point, people realized that nitrogen might be touched by an anesthetic effect. But in medicine, the so-called "funny gas" began to be used not immediately - people have fun to play the fact that after inhalation of this gas always want to laugh. First, funny gas was used for foci in the circus. In 1844, Circus Artist Gardner Colton (Gardner Colton) used cheerful gas to cheer one of the patients. From laughter, he fell from the stage, but no pain felt. Since then, frequent times often used in dentistry and other areas of medicine.
Throughout history, scientists tried many ways to anesthesia patients. But today the lidocaine and other funds appeared only in the 20th century. Thanks to them, the number of deaths during operations declined noticeably. And the anesthesia itself today, in most cases, is safe. According to the calculations of the researchers, the likelihood of death from anesthesia today is 1 to 200 thousand. That is, the risk to die from anesthesia is almost the same as the brick fell on his head.
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Scientists are still trying to develop new painkillers. At the beginning of 2020, I talked about how strong anesthetic can be made from the serpentine poison. If I wonder, read this link.