Foreword

Abstract

Any new speciality attracts pioneers at only one time during its development. Anaesthesia has only recently been acknowledged, throughout the world, as a recognised speciality in its own right. In its short history, little more than 100 years, its pioneers have leveled the jungle of ignorance to build a road on which our generation can proceed. However, when considering recent developments in medicine, we can reasonably conclude that modern surgery was able to progress only in light of the advancements in anaesthesia, with the related achievements of more advanced and safer anaesthetic methods. This development took place in the second half of the last century following the outstanding progress in the field of anaesthesia. Morton and Snow (who by the way was the first full-time anaesthetist) are only a few among a large group of physicians contributing to this advancement at that time.