March 30

This day in sketchtory, anesthesia was used for the first time, in an operation to remove a tumour. The doctor was Crawford Williamson Long, who After observing the same physiological effects with diethyl ether that Humphry Davy had described for nitrous oxide in 1800, Long used ether for the first time on March 30, 1842 to remove a tumor from the neck of a patient, James M. Venable, in Jefferson, Georgia. Long subsequently removed a second tumor from Venable and used ether as an anesthetic in amputations and childbirth.

The odd thing is that he held on to the knowledge for 7 years before releasing it publicly and obtaining a patent. Its interesting to me that even back in 1842 the medical community was just as selfish and financially driven as it is today. Just recently, a company called KV Pharmaceutical which created a drug called Makena (with public funding), a drug that prevents prenatal births, hiked the price from $5-$15 per injection, to $1500 per injection. They claim that they are simply trying to recoup researching costs, but as its been pointed out, if the currnt rate of use of the drug continued, they would gross over $30 million, more then ten times what the original funding totalled.

Als I'm trying to speed up these sketches, trying to get them out in about 5-10 minutes now unless I have an idea that really strikes me.