Who coined term anaesthesia
Correct Answer: Holmes
Description: Oliver Wendell Holmes coined the term anesthesia. In 1846, Holmes coined the word anesthesia. In a letter to dentist William T. G. Moon, the first practitioner to publicly demonstrate the use of ether during surgery, he wrote: "Everybody wants to have a hand in a great discovery. All I will do is to give a hint or two as to names--or the name--to be applied to the state produced and the agent. The state should, I think, be called "Anaesthesia." This signifies insensibility--more paicularly ... to objects of touch." Ether was used for frivolous purposes ("ether frolics"), but not as an anesthetic agent in humans until 1842, when Crawford W. Long and William E. Clark independently used it on patients for surgery and dental extraction, respectively. However, neither Long nor Clark publicized his discovery. Four years later, in Boston, on October 16, 1846, William T.G. Moon conducted the first publicized demonstration of general anesthesia for surgical operation using ether. The dramatic success of that exhibition led the operating surgeon to exclaim to a skeptical audience: "Gentlemen, this is no humbug!" Joseph Priestley produced nitrous oxide in 1772, and Humphry Davy first noted its analgesic propeies in 1800. Gardner Colton and Horace Wells are credited with having first used nitrous oxide as an anesthetic for dental extractions in humans in 1844. Ref: Miller's anesthesia 8th edition Ref: Morgan & Mikhail's clinical anesthesiology 6e
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Anaesthesia
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