The technique of putting a patient to sleep, or inducing complete unconsciousness is known as general anaesthesia or narcosis (Greek ‘sleep’). The first operation performed under general anaesthesia had, at that time, been performed seven years earlier, on 16 October 1846, at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, United States. A dentist called William Morton had anaesthetised a patient called Edward Abbott, by getting him to inhale ether, diethyl ether to be exact.
