James Watt, of Steam Engine Fame, Offered Inhaled Carbon Monoxide for Putative Therapeutic Action.

James Watt (1736-1819) is remembered as a steam engine innovator and industrial magnate. A polymath, he was also a hands-on contributor to the Medical Pneumatic Institution of Thomas Beddoes. Watt recruited Humphry Davy, who there discovered analgesic action of inhaled nitrous oxide in 1799.

Eponymous plot of Richard J. Kitz and Irwin B. Wilson in biochemistry.

Irwin B. Wilson and anesthesiologist Richard J. Kitz found the enzyme acetylcholinesterase to be inactivated in two steps by covalently acting molecules resembling acetylcholine in structure.

Burnett's "Cocaine" for dandruff.

Joseph Burnett manufactured the diethyl ether used for William T.G. Morton's public demonstration of inhaled surgical anesthesia on October 16, 1846 (Ether Day).

Oxygen Was Almost Named Nitrogen.

In his Tractatus Quinque Medico-Physici of 1674, John Mayow wrote that a fifth of atmospheric air is comprised of nitro-aerial spirit. That so-called spirit participates in both respiration and combustion. The etymology of "nitro-aerial spirit" stems from a mineral long called niter and now specified as potassium nitrate.

Anesthesia-related Ramifications of Benjamin Franklin's Ether-based Refrigeration.

In 1758, Benjamin Franklin froze water by means of the evaporation of diethyl ether. Diethyl ether became the coolant in early mechanical refrigerators and ice makers. Refrigeration advances by Carl von Linde and others provide medical oxygen from the air, liquid nitrogen for cryopreservation and cryoablation, xenon for inhaled anesthesia, and liquid helium for supercooling of magnetic resonance image scanners.

Henry Jacob Bigelow Inhaled Nitrous Oxide While an Undergraduate at Harvard College.

When teenaged Henry Jacob Bigelow was an undergraduate at Harvard College in 1833-1837, he prepared nitrous oxide gas for demonstrations to other students. Bigelow's son, William Sturgis Bigelow, related the claim, and there is an eyewitness account from Augustus Goddard Peabody, a fellow Harvard undergraduate with Bigelow. Peabody wrote to Henry David Thoreau about a nitrous frolic.

Thunberg's Barospirator, a Fully Encasing Predecessor of the Iron Lung.

Used as a ventilator for assisting victims of polio, the barospirator was described by Swedish physician-scientist Torsten Thunberg in 1924. An immediate predecessor of the iron lung of Philip Drinker, the barospirator fully encased the entire body. Cyclic air-pressure changes within the chamber achieved ventilation during equilibrations of intrapulmonary and ambient pressures.

George Washington Frost Mellen and Resuscitation with Nitrous Oxide in 1847.

In The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal of 1847 (later to be called The New England Journal of Medicine), Boston chemist George Washington Frost Mellen claimed that inhaled nitrous oxide gas supports human life in the manner of oxygen gas, and he proposed the use of nitrous oxide in resuscitation from drowning and from carbon monoxide poisoning. The claim was reprinted in at least one dental journal and was long cited as justification for the use of 100% nitrous oxide for inhaled anesthesia. Advocates included anesthesia pioneer and painless dentist Gardner Quincy Colton.

Divine's CO Absorber of 1867.

Chemist and inventor Silas R. Divine (1838-1912) sold ammonium nitrate and other anesthesia supplies in New York City. He offered a carbon dioxide absorber for the purpose of rebreathing nitrous oxide.

Phineas T. Barnum, Gardner Q. Colton, and Painless Parker Were Kindred Princes of Humbug.

Phineas T. Barnum (1810-1891) and Gardner Q. Colton (1814-1898) both entered the laughing gas show business in Manhattan in 1844.

The role of multimodal analgesia in preventing the development of chronic postsurgical pain and reducing postoperative opioid use.

Chronic postsurgical pain (CPSP) is a possible complication of various surgical procedures, which can impair patients' quality of life while also contributing to chronic opioid use. Multiple biopsychosocial factors put patients at risk for CPSP. Multimodal analgesia with the use of various pharmacologic and regional anesthetic techniques can help reduce the incidence and severity of CPSP.

Charles T. Jackson and William T.G. Morton Patented the "Ethereal Solution of Opium" of Elton Romeo Smilie.

The Jackson-Morton 1846 patent for surgical insensibility by means of sulphuric ether states that opiates can be added to the ether and co-administered by inhalation. The erroneous concept that ether could carry opiates in its vapor phase at room temperature was proposed in Boston in 1846 by Elton Romeo Smilie (1819-1889), who believed that the opiates were more important than the ether vehicle.

The Perfect and Famous Anesthetic Known as Methyl in Boston in 1895.

Extravagant claims were made for proprietary dental anesthetics in Boston, MA, in the late 1800s. For instance, in 1883, Urial K. Mayo introduced an inhaled Vegetable Anaesthetic comprised of nitrous oxide that had been uselessly pretreated with botanical material.

John Snow and the First Second-Gas Effect.

In 1847, British anesthesia pioneer John Snow (1813-1858) observed that patients did not manifest cyanosis during induction with hypoxic mixtures of ether vapor in air. He hypothesized a molecular mechanism that would be understood over a century later as the second gas effect.

John Collins Warren, Surgeon of Ether Day, Entered Sulphuric Ether into The Pharmacopoeia of the Massachusetts Medical Society in 1808.

John Collins Warren, the surgeon of Ether Day in 1846 at Massachusetts General Hospital, entered sulphuric ether into the nationally recognized Massachusetts pharmacopeia of 1808.

Association of opioid receptor mu 1 (OPRM1) A118G polymorphism (rs1799971) with nicotine dependence.

Background And Object: Whether opioid-receptor mu 1 (OPRM1) A118G polymorphism (rs1799971) is associated with nicotine dependence is controversial. We analyzed the combined results from published studies of this possibility.

Methods: Literature reviews were performed according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines.

Lack of associations of the opioid receptor mu 1 (OPRM1) A118G polymorphism (rs1799971) with alcohol dependence: review and meta-analysis of retrospective controlled studies.

Background: Studies have sought associations of the opioid receptor mu 1 (OPRM1) A118G polymorphism (rs1799971) with alcohol-dependence, but findings are inconsistent. We summarize the information as to associations of rs1799971 (A > G) and the alcohol-dependence.

Methods: Systematically, we reviewed related literatures using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guideline.