Ten, nine, eight, seven…sedated and monitored. Pain-free procedures and unconscious patients. An invention that we often don’t acknowledge the privilege and luxury of having. Whether injected into the bloodstream or inhaled as a gas, anesthesia has allowed medical surgeries to become routine-based procedures rather than a last resort. Patients had to be strapped by several people while screaming in agony and surviving the blinding pain of a scalpel. Anesthesia is a historical invention that changed the lives of millions of people and created a breakthrough in medical practices that brought an end to an everyday-societal challenge. The search for pain-relief substances was a goal for thousands of years. The first attempts to develop anesthesia can be dated back to the Assyrians more than 5,000 years ago. They invented herbal sedation recipes which included a psychedelic combination of belladonna, a toxic herbaceous plant that has psychoactive effects. At the same time, Egyptians utilized opium poppies for sedating purposes. However, how anesthesia became a solution for an everyday challenge can be attributed to the experiments of Joseph Priestley. His experiments included pouring nitric acid over brass, known as nitric oxide, and mixing this gas with iron fillings and mercury to form nitrous oxide. The developments of this gas didn’t occur until Humphry Davy left his education to study Priestley’s work on gases. He found that breathing nitrous gas produced euphoria instead of it being deadly. As described by Davy, “[the gas] appears capable of destroying physical pain and might be advantageous during surgery”. His work encouraged Gardner Colton, a showman and a former medical student, to demonstrate the effects of nitrous oxide on his volunteer when he injured his leg showing no signs of pain. Amazed by Colton’s demonstrations, Horace Wells, an American dentist, pioneered the use of nitrous oxide in tooth extraction procedures. However, his unsuccessful trip to Boston to demonstrate the use of anesthetics gave his colleague, William Morton, the chance to demonstrate the use of inhaled ether as a surgical anesthetic in 1846. After that, the use of ether spread rapidly. John Snow, a leader in the development of anesthesia, popularized chloroform. As a result, nitrous oxide was used in thousands of dental procedures. Not only was inhaled anesthetics being developed, but also local and regional anesthesia had its popularity. Developments include cocaine, morphine, strychnine, and brucine. They demonstrate results when introduced into a wound. In 1905, procaine was introduced that was used in nerve blockage which its study continues to this day. Spinal anesthesia and epidurals were made possible. In the 1930s, tracheal intubation was performed to secure a patient’s airway and deliver ventilation to the lungs. Studies in tracheal intubation and securing ventilation led to the use of paralyzing agents known as neuromuscular blocking substances. Moreover, Harold Griffith and Enid Johnson reported the first successful abdominal muscle relaxant in 1942. Over time, more anesthetics were being developed and utilized—the use of chloroform, halothane, enflurane, and isoflurane, IV drugs like etomidate and propofol were also introduced which made injected anesthesia possible. In 1926, John Lundy introduced balanced anesthesia—multiple drugs used to attain unconsciousness, pain control, and muscle relaxation to produce the ideal of general anesthetics. Today, workstations are fully equipped with monitoring machines, portable gas tanks, ventilators, and respirometers making anesthesia safe to administer, changing the lives of millions of people and allowing medical procedures and innovations to be made possible.