Two upright cylindrical pieces of apparatus dominate the reverse of this dental trade card (left) distributed by Dr. Franklin C. “Frank” Longnecker (ca. 1839 to 1933) of Buffalo, New York. Compressed nitrous oxide is released gradually from the shorter cylinder into the taller one, the gasometer. After adulterating his nitrous oxide with a chloroformed elixir, Longnecker advertised that he “numbs the nerves to all the pain / While pulling teeth to the highest strain, / Go and breathe the Vital Air / In DR. F. C. LONGNECKER’S Dental Chair….” Closer examination (right) reveals that Longnecker is depicted holding both the dental forceps and the anesthetic inhaler in his right hand. Thus, he is acting simultaneously as both surgeon and anesthetist on the depicted lady patient, a practice later decried as risky. After passing away in his 92nd year, Dr. Longnecker was buried in Los Angeles’ Hollywood Forever Cemetery. This trade card is part of the Wood Library-Museum’s Ben Z. Swanson Collection. (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology.)
Two upright cylindrical pieces of apparatus dominate the reverse of this dental trade card (left) distributed by Dr. Franklin C. “Frank” Longnecker (ca. 1839 to 1933) of Buffalo, New York. Compressed nitrous oxide is released gradually from the shorter cylinder into the taller one, the gasometer. After adulterating his nitrous oxide with a chloroformed elixir, Longnecker advertised that he “numbs the nerves to all the pain / While pulling teeth to the highest strain, / Go and breathe the Vital Air / In DR. F. C. LONGNECKER’S Dental Chair….” Closer examination (right) reveals that Longnecker is depicted holding both the dental forceps and the anesthetic inhaler in his right hand. Thus, he is acting simultaneously as both surgeon and anesthetist on the depicted lady patient, a practice later decried as risky. After passing away in his 92nd year, Dr. Longnecker was buried in Los Angeles’ Hollywood Forever Cemetery. This trade card is part of the Wood Library-Museum’s Ben Z. Swanson Collection. (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology.)
George S. Bause, M.D., M.P.H., Honorary Curator and Laureate of the History of Anesthesia, Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology, Schaumburg, Illinois, and Clinical Associate Professor, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. UJYC@aol.com.
