Volume 196 - Issue 5
We’ll drink to that: the 200th anniversary of Australia’s oldest hospital
Author: Michael G Cooper
Med J Aust 2012; 196 (5): 315-316. || doi: 10.5694/mja12.10227
Published online: 19 March 2012
Published online: 19 March 2012
To the Editor: The first recorded use of an anaesthetic in Australia was not at Sydney Hospital, as stated by Kappagoda,1 but was at Dr John Belisario’s rooms in Spring Street, Sydney. Belisario, with Dr Charles Nathan (honorary surgeon to Sydney Infirmary), administered ether to two patients having dental extractions on 6 June 1847, and possibly to other patients a day or two earlier.2,3
The first recorded use of an anaesthetic for surgery was in Launceston, Tasmania, by Dr William Russ Pugh on 7 June 1847, when he administered ether for removal of an epulis from a woman’s jaw, followed by excision of a cataract from a man. Pugh published these cases in the Australian Medical Journal — the first medical journal in Australia, of which the Medical Journal of Australia is the direct descendant,4 and which only existed for 15 months. The Editor, Dr Isaac Aaron, was one of the first surgeons at Sydney Infirmary. Ether was the sole anaesthetic available in Australia for 10 months before chloroform was introduced.
The first recorded death under ether occurred in Sydney on 9 April 1848. Two days later, on Tuesday 11 April, Nathan gave evidence in the morning at the inquest of this death and, in the afternoon, gave the first chloroform anaesthetic in Australia at Sydney Infirmary, to a young girl. The first recorded death under chloroform anaesthesia in Australia occurred on 19 July 1848 at Windsor, New South Wales.2
Sydney Infirmary, later Hospital, was closely involved in the early days of anaesthesia in Australia, both on site and through its staff, but cannot claim priority.
Competing interests
No relevant disclosures.
References
- Kappagoda A. We’ll drink to that: the 200th anniversary of Australia’s oldest hospital. Med J Aust 2012; 196: 77-78. 0_CHDICCDB
- Cooper MG. Dr Charles Nathan – his contribution to colonial Australian anaesthesia. Anaesth Intensive Care 1991; 19: 261-266. 0_CBBFIDIC
- Wilson G. One grand chain. The history of anaesthesia in Australia 1846-1962, Vol 1. Melbourne: Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists, 1995. 0_i1142870
- Winton RR. Australian medical journals: their history and current locations. Bull Postgrad Comm Med Univ Syd 1969; 24: 259-261. 0_i1142873