The 2016 Lewis H. Wright Memorial Lecture: America's Doctor Anaesthetists (1862-1936)-Turning a Tide of Asphyxiating Waves

Laughing-gas showman G.Q. Colton franchised dental extraction under 100% nitrous oxide in many large American cities before popularizing the practice with French Imperial Court dentist T.W. Evans in France and then England. Chicago dentist Z. Rogers helped surgeon E. Andrews oxygenate nitrous oxide, with neither man changing significantly the clinical practices of others. London's F.W. Hewitt and Pittsburgh's S.J. Hayes oxygenated anesthetics with greater clinical impact. By 1920, E.I. McKesson had publicized his practice of secondary saturation with bursts of 100% nitrous oxide to relax musculature in anesthetized patients. In the banner year of 1936, (1) C.B. Courville published a paper about brain damage following hypoxic anesthetics, (2) pulse oximetry pioneer T. Aoyagi was born, and (3) a New York society nationalized into the American Society of Anesthetists, many of whose presidents would champion the adequate oxygenation and the monitoring of anesthetized patients. Many dental and medical doctors first promoted and then eventually opposed hypoxic anesthetics, finally turning the tide of asphyxiating waves.