From Craft to Specialty: A Medical and Social History of Anesthesia and Its Changing Role in Health Care

From Craft to Specialty is a medical and social history of surgical anesthesia, from long before the advent of 'modem' clinical anesthesia in 1846 to the present day. It emphasizes the fact that, over the past century and a half, anesthesia has progressed from being a craft based on empirical knowledge, to a discipline in which a scientific approach began to shape its practice, and, fi nally, in the 1930s,to become a medical specialty that encompassed research and formal education and certification of practitioners as well as practice. Two other aspects of change in anesthesia are stressed in this comprehensive history. One concerns the change in the nature and scope of anesthesia. Today, anesthesiologists work not only in the technically sophisticated environment of operating rooms but also elsewhere, specializing in the management of pain due to various causes, participating in intensive care of the critically ill, and involving themselves also in the resuscitation of victims of sudden collapse. The second aspect of change follows on the first, for the diversity of the practice of anesthesiology is such that it now plays an increasingly important part in health care.