Anaesthesia on the Western Front-Perspectives a Century Later

Abstract

This year, 2016, marks the centenary of some of the worst battles of World War I. It is timely to reflect on the experiences of those who lived through those events, and the significant effects on the development of anaesthesia that occurred as a result. War has been a catalyst that has accelerated the development of medicine and surgery throughout history. The challenges of the Western Front, with its massive numbers of injured, saw progress in the understanding and management of trauma and shock, and significant improvement in the provision of anaesthesia and the training of anaesthesia providers. The result was increased anaesthetic safety for the civilian population after the war and further development of anaesthesia and resuscitation as a specialised area of medicine.

Anesthesia and World War II: When the Battlefield Becomes a Research Field—A Bibliometric Analysis of the Influence of World War II on the Development of Anesthesiology

“…1 Recognition of the importance of anesthesia as a medical specialty confirmed the necessity to organize further training. 2 This led to the second factor: the development of an academic foundation for the subject during the interwar period. In the United States, the first departments of anesthesia were created, with, among them, John Lundy at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota (1924); Ralph Waters at the University of Wisconsin (1927); and Henry Beecher at the Harvard Medical School in Boston (1936).…”