ANESTHESIA AND RESUSCITATION

-The Greek philosopher Dioscorides was the first to use the term "anaesthesia" in the 1st century B.C. when he described the narcosis-like effects of the Mandragora plant.-The term was later defined in Boiley's Universal English Etymological Dictionary in 1721 as a "deficit" of sensation".- Still later it was described in the "British Encyclopedia" in 1771 as "deprivation of the senses".-The current term describing the "sleep-like state" making surgery painless is attributed to Oliver Wenall Men in 1846.-In the United States of America, the use of the term anesthesiology was applied to the practice of anesthesia, proposed during the second decade of the 20th century to describe the fundamental and scientific development of the specialty.- Although the specialty now provides a scientific foundation that rivals other disciplines, anesthesia remains more like a mixture of science and art.-Moreover, the practice of anesthesiology has not expanded to the extent that patients can no longer tolerate the slightest surgical and obstetrical pain.