In conducting my research, I found out that alcohol could greatly affect our brain and sometimes could even paralyze it. I wonder if alcohol consumption could also lessen the amount of pain that we feel during surgeries.
While surfing the internet, I came across a discussion about the discovery and history of anesthesia. It is entitled: Lecture 4: THE DISCOVERY AND INVENTION OF ANESTHESIA (Stories in the History of Medicine) and is written by Adam Blatner, M.D.
While reading this article, I found out that alcohol and other substances such as opium were once used as a form of anesthesia. It was stated in the discussion that early surgeons, because there is no anesthesia yet, would make their patients drunk to resist the pain of the surgery. The problem is that alcohol cannot fully make the patient numb that is why the surgeon needs to work fast while a number of men is trying to hold the patient in place.
Another problem that early surgeons encountered is that some of their patients vomit due to too much consumption of alcohol. The patient may unconsciously inhale his own vomit which will result in a kind of pneumonia called Aspiration pneumonia.
I was surprised that early people uses the effects of alcohol in medicine particularly in anesthetics. I cannot imagine that the substance most people nowadays use to consume and abuse was so relevant in the early development of anesthesia.
Thank God we already have the technology to provide us a good form of anesthesia; we do not have to suffer the pain of surgeries. I cannot imagine a dentist asking his patient to get drunk before a tooth extraction. What more if the patient is a non-drinker and does not even like the smell of alcohol.
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