Search

On December 19, 1846, at the London home of Francis Boott, dentist James Robinson administered the vapor of diethyl ether to a young female patient named Miss Lonsdale. This was the earliest known attempt in England to provide painless operating conditions for a dental extraction, and it was successful. Many authors have since written much about Boott and Robinson, but scarcely anything is known about Miss Lonsdale. In contemporaneous accounts of the event, Robinson referred to his patient as a "young person" and a "young lady"; Boott, however, named her, suggesting that she was publicly recognizable. Our initial attempt to identify Miss Lonsdale was based on genealogical, United Kingdom Census, and other public records, using selection criteria based on age, name recognition, familial relationships, and London addresses. This produced 7 possible candidates from publicly recognizable families, though none was notable in her own right. Our second attempt was based primarily on contemporaneous newspaper records, among which were published 2 private letters in which Boott referred to Robinson's patient as a "girl." We found that "Miss Lonsdale" was the publicly recognizable name of 2 young stage-performing sisters, Adeline Lonsdale, a danseuse, and Annie Lonsdale, an actor-comedienne. Both subsequently emigrated to the United States where they were well-known stage performers. Accordingly, we suggest that both are highly probable candidates for that etherized patient, with the younger sister Adeline then more publicly recognizable. However, no records were found that directly associated any of the Miss Lonsdale candidates with that first dental anesthetic in England., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2023 International Anesthesia Research Society.)

Alterations in the course of and histopathologic response to influenza viral infections by halothane, enflurane, and diethyl ether anesthesia were evaluated in ferrets. There were no significant differences in the incidence and duration of lethargy, pyrexia, rhinorrhea, or sneezing in infected animals given one of the three anesthetic agents under investigation, compared with those receiving no anesthesia. There were no differences in lung pathology in infected animals given one of the three anesthetic agents, or no anesthesia, though histopathologic changes in the nasal turbinates were significantly greater in ferrets given enflurane. This study suggests that general anesthesia administered to ferrets infected with influenza virus carries minimal morbidity, although enflurane anesthesia was found to produce greater histopathologic changes than the other agents.