Word: ethers
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Anesthesia has advanced far beyond the ether mask and morphine stage of 20 years ago. Today, during critical operations, e.g., inside the heart, as many as eight different painkillers may be administered to ease the patient's lot and the surgeon's task. Even in minor surgery, drugs are used lavishly to prevent discomfort. But even the best of the new techniques carry their own hazards. Last week two top Boston anesthesia experts, Henry K. Beecher and Donald Todd, laid down evidence that modern anesthesia is killing not only pain but is still killing a shockingly high percentage...
...Most dangerous of the drugs is curare, a muscle relaxant better known as the poison with which South American Indians tip their arrows. It accounts for one-third of the deaths caused by anesthesia: one death per 370 patients. When used in combination with ether, curare becomes more hazardous, causing one death per 250 patients. Administered during major surgery, the curare death rate soared to one death out of 192 patients...
...Chase and Raymond Moley, Journalists Ernest K. Lindley and Virginius Dabney) to rate the 100 most significant events in history. First place: Columbus' discovery of America. Second: Gutenberg's development of movable type. Eleven events tied for third place. Tied for fourth place: U.S. Constitution takes effect, ether makes surgery painless, X ray discovered, Wright brothers' plane flies, Jesus Christ is crucified...
...Revolution? On the answer to this question hang enormous issues. Physicists are already comparing the neutrino hunt with the igth century hunt for the "celestial ether," which was then considered necessary to carry waves of light through the vacuum of space. When the Michelson-Morley experiment (reported in 1887) proved that the ether does not exist, physics was thrown into confusion and had to be rescued painfully by Einstein's relativity...
Medical Research Laboratories use 60 to 65 monkeys in a single morning. Each is deeply anesthetized with ether. In a couple of minutes a skilled surgeon removes the kidneys. Then the monkey is killed with an overdose of ether. Patient technicians cut the kidneys into tiny pieces with nail scissors. The bits of tissue go into big glass bottles with a pink solution known by its formula designation: No. 199. Hundreds of bottles are rocked gently for six days in an incubator, and kidney cells grow in the fluid as though they were still in the living animal...