Institutional and Organizational News

American Association of Nurse Anesthetists Archives Is Now Open to Researchers

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Abstract

The discovery of the anesthetizing property of diethyl‑ether in America over 150 years ago rivaled the discoveries of professional nursing and the germ theory of disease as the most significant advance in healthcare of the nineteenth century. These three advances led to the development of modern surgery. Ether was administered by a disinterested medical student or by some other untrained individual. However, by the 1880s, enough anesthetic morbidity had been encountered that surgeons demanded clinicians who would dedicate themselves solely to the care of patients under anesthesia. For that reason, and perhaps due to a desire for gender‑based superiority over their anesthetizing colleagues, surgeons recruited nurses as anesthetists. Thus was born the subspecialty of nurse anesthesia.

How to Cite:

Midwest Archives Conference, (1995) “American Association of Nurse Anesthetists Archives Is Now Open to Researchers”, MAC Newsletter 23(1), 10-11.