yoga
10-31-2006, 06:13 AM
The folowing is cross-posted from another site. I think it is expecially relevant today when so many people not trained in anesthesia, seem to think they know how to do it.
"Human stupidity in anesthesia is deadly, actual and very serious. Here I quote same examples.
******************* 1) During the second world war, the American army shipped gas cylinders to the deposits they had in England, in preparation for the invasion. They had cyclopropane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide.
Well, a bright sergeant, in charge of the main deposit, decided that someone made a mistake, in having cylinders in all different colors, not knowing that green was the official army color. So they painted all the gas containers in green. A lot of wounded soldiers died from getting C02 and nitrous oxide instead of Oxygen. It* was Henry Beecher who told me this. At one time he was chief of anesthesia for the American armed forces over there.
********************** 2) During the Japanese attack in Pearl Harbor they claim that more people died from thiopental than from the Japanese bombing. The reason is that this agent was used even for thoracotomies without oxygen or anesthetic machines. Truly, thiopental as Prof.Macintosh used to say ,"it is fatally easy to use".
*** *** *** *** ****** 3) This to me is the worse, coming from The Sunday Times from June 18, 2006.
It happened In England, a country considered to have the best clinical anesthesia in the world,
*** *** *** *** *** *** 200 women, who received continuous epidural block for labor,*in the space of twelve months, received by mistake, solutions of bupivacaine IV which should be used* for the block, instead of saline or glucose. This was done by midwifes, who did the "topped up" after the block was installed by the anesthesiologist. 3 died because of it.
******************** It seems "anything goes"* according to Murphy and the famous Cole Porter song!*
*** *** *** *** ***
*
"Human stupidity in anesthesia is deadly, actual and very serious. Here I quote same examples.
******************* 1) During the second world war, the American army shipped gas cylinders to the deposits they had in England, in preparation for the invasion. They had cyclopropane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide.
Well, a bright sergeant, in charge of the main deposit, decided that someone made a mistake, in having cylinders in all different colors, not knowing that green was the official army color. So they painted all the gas containers in green. A lot of wounded soldiers died from getting C02 and nitrous oxide instead of Oxygen. It* was Henry Beecher who told me this. At one time he was chief of anesthesia for the American armed forces over there.
********************** 2) During the Japanese attack in Pearl Harbor they claim that more people died from thiopental than from the Japanese bombing. The reason is that this agent was used even for thoracotomies without oxygen or anesthetic machines. Truly, thiopental as Prof.Macintosh used to say ,"it is fatally easy to use".
*** *** *** *** ****** 3) This to me is the worse, coming from The Sunday Times from June 18, 2006.
It happened In England, a country considered to have the best clinical anesthesia in the world,
*** *** *** *** *** *** 200 women, who received continuous epidural block for labor,*in the space of twelve months, received by mistake, solutions of bupivacaine IV which should be used* for the block, instead of saline or glucose. This was done by midwifes, who did the "topped up" after the block was installed by the anesthesiologist. 3 died because of it.
******************** It seems "anything goes"* according to Murphy and the famous Cole Porter song!*
*** *** *** *** ***
*