The influence of Sir Robert Reynolds Macintosh on the development of anaesthesia

Fifteen years ago, on the 28th of August 2004, one of the British pioneers of anaesthesiology, Sir Robert Reynolds Macintosh, died in Oxford. Since he had a major influence on the development of anaesthesia in Europe and the rest of the world, we felt it would be appropriate to review his life and work. Macintosh was the first Nuffield Professor of Anaesthetics in the University of Oxford, so we provide a brief biography of Lord Nuffield and describe the historical background to the creation of the chair. We then outline Sir Robert's early life and describe pre-war developments at Oxford, including the development of the calibrated Oxford vaporizer for ether and laryngoscope. We discuss the wartime research into survival at high altitudes, the design of life-jackets and the efficiency of methods of artificial ventilation, and then show how Sir Robert pioneered a more open approach to the problem of anaesthetic-related deaths. We list some of the anaesthesiological textbooks which were translated into German, and then describe how his overseas travels influenced the teaching of anaesthesiology all over the world. We record Sir Robert Macintosh's connections with East and West Germany and note how he encouraged the development of academic departments of anaesthesia worldwide.