A brief history of early neuroanesthesia

Two key discoveries in the 19th century--infection control and the development of general anesthesia--provided an impetus for the rapid advancement of surgery, especially within the field of neurosurgery. Improvements in anesthesia and perioperative care, in particular, fostered the development of meticulous surgical technique conducive to the refinement of neuroanatomical understanding and optimization of neurosurgical procedures and outcomes. Yet, even dating back to the earliest times, some form of anesthesia or perioperative pain management was used during neurosurgical procedures. Despite a few reports on anesthesia published around the time of William Morton's now-famous public demonstration of ether anesthesia in 1846, relatively little is known or written of early anesthetics in neurosurgery. In the present article the authors discuss the history of anesthesia pertaining to neurosurgical procedures and draw parallels between the refinements and developments in anesthesia care over time with some of the concomitant advances in neurosurgery.