As early as 1800 Humphry Davy wrote that laughing gas might be useful in surgery.

1800 · 1844 · apart: 44 years

He enjoyed breathing nitrous oxide with his poet friends, but doctors ignored the hint for almost half a century.

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The event

• First public demonstration of ether anaesthesia1846 · Boston. On 16 October 1846 at Massachusetts General Hospital, dentist William Morton put a patient under with ether while a surgeon removed a tumour painlessly. Anaesthesia spread worldwide within months and made modern surgery possible.

18th century · 19th century

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