LEILA FADEL, HOST:
World Pirate Day, Chocolate Day - there's a day for just about everything. Do you have a favorite day, A?
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Today - National Sports Day.
FADEL: Is it National Sports Day today?
MARTÍNEZ: Yes, it is. Yeah.
FADEL: Of course, I did not know that. I also cannot keep up with these days, so I don't have a favorite day. But there's a day also for anesthesia. Did you know that?
MARTÍNEZ: No. For what? For people with no feelings?
FADEL: (Laughter) No. It's World Ether Day.
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter).
FADEL: The early anesthetic that is usually inhaled was born in a very specific place, a place known as the Ether Dome at Mass General Hospital in Boston. And reporter James Bennett II of member station GBH takes us there.
JAMES BENNETT II, BYLINE: Mass General's Ether Dome is kind of tucked away. One way to get there is through the emergency room entrance, up to the fourth floor, through a door to a magnificent surgical theater built in 1821.
SARAH ALGER: We are standing in the hospital's original operating room.
BENNETT: That's Sarah Alger. She's director of Massachusetts General Hospital's Russell Museum of Medical History and Innovation. The room - it's still used for lectures, but it's also well-preserved and serves as a museum of sorts. The louver windows in the cupola open to admit a flood of light. I'm looking at a human skeleton and a human mummy.
ALGER: So at left are the remains of an ancient Egyptian man, who was named Padihershef.
BENNETT: At the front of the room is a large, 10-by-7-foot painting. There's a man Alger identifies as Dr. William T. G. Morton, a dentist and one of the first doctors to experiment with using ether as a surgical anesthetic. He holds a glass sphere stuffed with a sponge soaked with ether, a colorless liquid that can cause euphoria or hallucinations or, in high enough doses, unconsciousness. Another surgeon is removing a tumor from the patient's neck.
ALGER: And surrounding him are students and other physicians and surgeons, who are keen to know if this is going to work.
BENNETT: It did work. And the day of that surgery - October 16, 1846 - that's considered the birth date of anesthesiology. It was the first time ether was publicly and successfully used to put a patient under for surgery. Dr. Crawford Long of Georgia used it in 1842, but didn't publish his findings until 1849. Before anesthetics, surgery was terribly painful, if not impossible. Doctors might use alcohol, distractions or violently knock a patient out. And it's really easy to take something like anesthesia for granted. Historians think the operating room may have been built on top of the hospital to mask the cries of patients in the rest of the building.
LILLY LIAO: It would have been awful, like, if you think about it.
BENNETT: Dr. Lilly Liao, a resident at Brigham and Women's Hospital, switched her specialty from obstetrics to anesthesiology. And now she really appreciates how much of a game changer anesthesia is.
LIAO: Having someone cut into your belly, cut into your chest, even just, like, fixing a broken hand, finger - like, can you imagine being awake for that?
BENNETT: About 15 million Americans have surgery every year. It's hard to imagine it without anesthetics. So it's no wonder Liao's dad, also an anesthesiologist, calls the Ether Dome a medical mecca. And for Dr. Liao, this is her first Ether Day. She says she feels a real sense of responsibility.
LIAO: We're there for the most critical moments, you know, before surgery, during surgery - you know, especially when things go wrong with the surgery. I'm just really glad we have a day to reflect upon that.
BENNETT: So on October 16, World Ether Day, raise your glasses high, and thank an anesthesiologist for the best sleep of your life.
For NPR News, I'm James Bennett II in Boston.
(SOUNDBITE OF HOME'S "OORT CLOUD")
FADEL: A, it's not just World Ether Day. It's a day for, like, a million other things today.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. The one I love the most, Leila - and I'm sure you do, as well - is National Boss Day. And I'd like just to say for a second, for all of our bosses listening, happy National Boss Day.
FADEL: (Laughter).
MARTÍNEZ: We love you.
FADEL: A, you're so transparent. They're going to know what you're doing. I also like my bosses (laughter).
MARTÍNEZ: I hope they do know what I'm doing.
FADEL: (Laughter).
MARTÍNEZ: That's the point.
(SOUNDBITE OF HOME'S "OORT CLOUD") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.