["Gentlemen, this is not a humbug". The 150th anniversary of anesthesia]

On 16 October 1996 it was 150 years since William T.G. Morton performed the first successful demonstration of ether anaesthesia in the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, USA. Controlling the pain caused by surgery had been a problem for a long time. In fact, many chemical agents with pain relieving properties were recognized before they were used in practice. Morton started systematic studies on the anaesthetic effects of ether and convinced the medical world of the importance of pain free operations through his demonstration of ether inhalation. The news about ether anaesthesia spread around the world very quickly. The first ether anaesthesia administered in Norway took place at Rigshospitalet in Christiania on 4 March 1847. The first death from anaesthesia in Norway occurred in 1852. This article presents some aspects of both the Norwegian and international history of anaesthesia.