INHALED Painting of William T. G. Morton’s famous public demonstration of ether anesthesia during surgery at Breathe Deeply Massachusetts General Hospital on October 16, 1846

or centuries after ether was synthesized in 1540 in cided to try ether as an anesthetic during surgery. The 1842 FGermany, it was used as a painkiller and lung treatment experiment was a success, and Long continued administer- and later as a way to have fun. The famously buttoned-up ing the drug, though his work was never well publicized. Victorians were particularly fond of inhaling the drug, Four years later, dentist William T. G. Morton, along with laughing gas and helium, to cut loose. They unaware of Long’s work, seized on ether as the answer to even held parties, known as “ether frolics,” where guests pain-free surgery. He was so confi dent of the drug’s eff ec- breathed in the vapors and shared a good laugh at the tiveness that he arranged a public demonstration at Mas- ensuing antics. sachusetts General Hospital. On October 16, 1846, Morton But it was two American medical men who realized used an ether-soaked sponge to anesthetize a man with a ether’s potential as an anesthetic. , a vascular tumor in his neck, allowing the initially skeptical 19th-century physician from Georgia, regularly hosted surgeon to excise the growth. The surgical theater, now ether frolics in his offi ce. Noticing that guests felt no pain a national landmark, has been known as the Ether Dome when they fell down or knocked into furniture, Long de- ever since.

62 AMERICAN INVENTIONS

GGreatestInventions_Health.inddreatestInventions_Health.indd 6262 221/08/151/08/15 4:354:35 PMPM DISSOLVABLE PILL Easy to Swallow

n the 1870s some pills were so hard they simply passed Ithrough the patient, conveying no benefi t. Others broke down too easily, delivering an imprecise dose. To address these problems, Michigan doctor William Upjohn invented (and patented in 1885) a new pill-making method that involved spraying layer upon layer of the medicine in a mist form until a pill gradually built up. The resulting pellet was more uniform and stable than those made by pharmacists out of paste and less dense than those created by packing powder with a mallet. Upjohn founded the Upjohn Pill and Granule Company and marketed his tablets by sending samples to thousands of doctors, along with pills from competitors. He invited the physicians to see which was more easily pulverized; the crushable pill—Upjohn’s, of course—also readily dissolved in the patient’s digestive tract. Upjohn eventually evolved An image of a thumb crushing a pill was an early trademark of the Upjohn Pill and Granule Company into a major pharmaceutical business, now part of Pfi zer, Inc.

SURGICAL GLOVES Before the advent of surgical gloves in No Hands the 1890s, doctors and nurses performed surgery with bare hands.

terile surgical gloves originated not to Sprotect patients from infection but to relieve a nurse’s irritated skin. Before the gloves’ introduction, sur- geons and nurses performed operations with their bare hands. Then in 1889 a physician named William Stewart Halsted was appointed the fi rst chief of surgery at the newly established Johns Hopkins Uni- versity School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. Halsted was meticulous about cleanliness. But his head nurse, Caroline Hampton, complained that the disinfec- tant they used to wash up before surgery left her with a rash. Since Halsted admired her work—she was “an unusually effi cient woman,” he later wrote—Halsted enlisted the Good- year Rubber Company to make a pair of thin gloves just for Hampton. It was only much later that Halsted realized the gloves could help stop the spread of germs to patients. He also realized he had more than a professional interest in Hampton. The two married in 1890.

HEALTH AND MEDICINE 63

GGreatestInventions_Health.inddreatestInventions_Health.indd 6363 221/08/151/08/15 4:354:35 PMPM BLOOD BANK Life Savers

oday blood transfusions are so commonplace that most contributions to the fi eld. He determined that plasma trans- Tpeople take them for granted. But before World War I, fusions could be used in patients of any blood type. He also doctors could perform this lifesaving procedure only when invented a technique for drying plasma and reconstituting the donor was present. That’s because the technology did it, extending its shelf life, and began a blood-banking pro- not yet exist to prevent blood from clotting and deteriorat- gram at Presbyterian Hospital in New York. ing when exposed to air. But Drew is probably best remembered for his role in The fi rst step to the transfusion came in 1917, when helping to collect blood during World War II. In 1940 Drew scientists fi gured out how to add the right chemicals to headed a program called Blood for Britain and designed donated blood so it could be stored for longer periods and a system to collect blood in the States, process it into transported. Twenty years later, a team led by Charles plasma, and ship it overseas in unprecedented quantities Drew, a surgeon at New York’s Columbia University, pio- for wounded British soldiers. Later, with the entry of the neered the next advance: they invented a way to separate United States in the war, he created a similar system for out plasma, the clear, liquid portion of blood. The develop- American troops. Drew assisted recruiting thousands of do- ment was signifi cant because plasma is easier to transport nors and establishing the fi rst bloodmobiles. This national than whole blood, and the team’s work meant blood could blood bank, part of the American Red Cross, amassed more be kept even longer. than 13 million pints during the war and earned Drew In the coming years, Dr. Drew continued to make many recognition as the father of the blood bank.

Each year, 9.2 million Americans donate blood, and 4.5 million would die without it.

64 AMERICAN INVENTIONS

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