Medicine
- October - Dentist William T. G. Morton becomes the first person publicly to demonstrate the use of diethyl ether as a general anesthetic in what becomes known as the Ether Dome of Massachusetts General Hospital.
- December 21 - British surgeon Robert Liston carries out the first operation under anesthesia in Europe.
- Édouard Séguin publishes Traitement moral, hygiène et éducation des idiots et des autres enfants arriérés in Paris, the earliest systematic textbook dealing with the special needs of children with developmental disabilities; his views will be influential on both sides of the Atlantic.
- Dr J. Collis Browne formulates his laudanum-based pain-relieving Chlorodyne compound while serving in the British Indian Army.
Read more about this topic: 1846 In Science
Famous quotes containing the word medicine:
“We gave ‘em wings to fly and they rained death on us. We gave ‘em a voice to be heard around the world and they preach hatred to poison the minds of nations. Even the medicine we gave them to ease their pain is turned into a vice to enslave half mankind for the profit of a few. Ah, Janet, dear, don’t you see? Every gift that science has given them has been twisted into a thing of hate and greed.”
—Karl Brown (1897–1990)
“God isn’t compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness. You must make your choice. Our civilization has chosen machinery and medicine and happiness.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“For this invention of yours will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn it, by causing them to neglect their memory, inasmuch as, from their confidence in writing, they will recollect by the external aid of foreign symbols, and not by the internal use of their own faculties. Your discovery, therefore, is a medicine not for memory, but for recollection,—for recalling to, not for keeping in mind.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)