James Eckenhoff, M.D. (1915 to 1996), Dean of the Northwestern University School of Medicine and Past Editor-in-Chief of Anesthesiology, surveyed the rise of anesthesiology as a medical discipline in his 1977 Rovenstine Memorial Lecture. During his address, Eckenhoff referenced two famous paintings by Thomas Eakins (1844 to 1916), master of Realism, to highlight the state of anesthesia and surgery in the late-19th century United States. Eakins, who was fascinated by medicine and the human form, had enrolled in surgery classes taught by the magnetic Samuel Gross, M.D., at Jefferson Medical College. The Gross Clinic (1875, left) was Eakins’ unfiltered depiction of Gross at work, with natural skylight illuminating the surgeon’s furrowed brows and bloody hands. In the scene, the doctors still donned street clothes, and a junior surgeon, W. Joseph Hearn, M.D., delivered anesthesia using an ether-soaked cloth. Fourteen years later, Eakins’ The Agnew Clinic (1889, right), a portrait of renowned University of Pennsylvania surgeon D. Hayes Agnew, M.D., would show greater progress in surgery than anesthesia. There were glimmers of asepsis—white gowns, surgical drapes, and sterilized instruments. Anesthetic delivery was also cleaner, via ether cone, but the anesthetist, Ellwood Kirby, M.D., was still a young surgery resident. It would take several more decades for anesthesiology to become professionalized as an independent medical specialty in the United States. (Artwork from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology, Schaumburg, Illinois.)

James Eckenhoff, M.D. (1915 to 1996), Dean of the Northwestern University School of Medicine and Past Editor-in-Chief of Anesthesiology, surveyed the rise of anesthesiology as a medical discipline in his 1977 Rovenstine Memorial Lecture. During his address, Eckenhoff referenced two famous paintings by Thomas Eakins (1844 to 1916), master of Realism, to highlight the state of anesthesia and surgery in the late-19th century United States. Eakins, who was fascinated by medicine and the human form, had enrolled in surgery classes taught by the magnetic Samuel Gross, M.D., at Jefferson Medical College. The Gross Clinic (1875, left) was Eakins’ unfiltered depiction of Gross at work, with natural skylight illuminating the surgeon’s furrowed brows and bloody hands. In the scene, the doctors still donned street clothes, and a junior surgeon, W. Joseph Hearn, M.D., delivered anesthesia using an ether-soaked cloth. Fourteen years later, Eakins’ The Agnew Clinic (1889, right), a portrait of renowned University of Pennsylvania surgeon D. Hayes Agnew, M.D., would show greater progress in surgery than anesthesia. There were glimmers of asepsis—white gowns, surgical drapes, and sterilized instruments. Anesthetic delivery was also cleaner, via ether cone, but the anesthetist, Ellwood Kirby, M.D., was still a young surgery resident. It would take several more decades for anesthesiology to become professionalized as an independent medical specialty in the United States. (Artwork from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology, Schaumburg, Illinois.)

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Jane S. Moon, M.D., Assistant Clinical Professor, Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, California.