Mar 27, 2023

Safety As We Watch

Anaesthesia in Ireland 1847-1998

Declan Warde, Joseph Tracey, and John Cahill

Hosted by Bridget English

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Summary

The discovery of anaesthesia which could be administered safely to eliminate the pain of surgery and other medical and dental procedures is widely considered to be one of the greatest developments of the nineteenth century. Yet, until now few studies have focused on anaesthesia in Ireland.

Safety As We Watch: Anaesthesia in Ireland 1847-1998 (Wordwell Books, 2022), written by three Irish anaesthetists, is the first published study of the history of anaesthesia in Ireland. Featuring fascinating vignettes of the personalities and innovators who led the development of anaesthesia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the book leads readers through the history of the practice over 150 years, sketching global networks of exchange between medical practitioners and researchers. Beginning with the administration of the first general anaesthetic in Ireland on 1 January 1847, when ether was given to an 18-year-old girl undergoing an amputation under the care of Dr John MacDonnell, the book traces the debates and issues surrounding the uses and administration of anaesthesia through to the foundation of the College of Anaesthetists of Ireland in 1998. Safety as We Watch is divided into two parts: Part I focuses on the development of chloroform and ether, the mechanisms used to administer the drugs, as well as the innovators and medical professionals responsible, and Part II focuses on the organizations and academic developments in anaesthesia practice and education.

In its examination of this often-overlooked area in the history of Irish medicine Safety as We Watch offers new insight into medical organizations, as well as cultural conceptions of pain and consciousness, and the ways that anaesthesia transformed doctor-patient relationships. This book will be of great interest to medical professionals, historians of medicine, health humanities scholars and to more general readers interested in anaesthesia.

Bridget English is a scholar of Irish literature and culture, modernism, and health humanities, based at the University of Illinois Chicago. She co-convenes the Irish Studies Seminar at the Newberry Library. On Twitter.

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Bridget English

Brigid Wallace is a graduate student at Lehigh University. A historian of the French Atlantic world, my research explores how race, migration, revolution, and science shaped the lives of ordinary people during the Age of Revolutions. Her work traces the movement of people, plants, and ideas across the Atlantic, focusing on mixed-race families who fled Saint-Domingue during the Haitian Revolution and rebuilt their lives in Charleston, South Carolina. Her master's thesis, "Preservation of a Family: The Noisettes' Journey from Saint-Domingue to Charleston, 1794–1860," examines how one family navigated the political upheavals of the French, Haitian, and American Revolutions while preserving kinship networks across shifting racial and national boundaries. Through the story of the Noisette family, I investigate how migration transformed identities and how refugees carried not only memories and traditions but also scientific knowledge. Her work demonstrates that the history of revolution is not only a story of politics and war but also one of families, mobility, and the exchange of knowledge that reshaped the modern Atlantic world.

"You may encounter many obstacles, but you must not be defeated!" Maya Angelou

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