- Email: [email protected]
End of Life Care during the Holidays?
Journal of Anesthesia History 1 (2015) 129–130
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Anesthesia History journal homepage: www.anesthesiahistoryjournal.org
Ethereal Images
End of Life Care during the Holidays?☆ Lei Tian, MD a, George S. Bause, MD, MPH a,b,c,⁎ a b c
Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, 11100 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine, 2124 Cornell Rd, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA Honorary Curator, American Society of Anesthesiologists, Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology, 1061 American Lane, Schaumburg, IL 60173-4973, USA
In this 1906 political cartoon, The Proper Way to Kill the White House Turkey by Charles Lewis Bartholomew (1869-1949; editorial cartoonist, Minneapolis, MN, USA), the artist comments on one of the scandals surrounding President Theodore Roosevelt (18581919; 26th US President, 1901-1909, Washington, DC, USA). 1 Two years earlier, the President's children had been falsely accused of cruelly chasing a Thanksgiving turkey around the White House grounds. 2 By humanizing the handling of the bird, the artist makes light of how turkeys are traditionally treated in the holiday season. Loosely tethered by his neck, wings, and legs to a lawn chair, this cartoon turkey is attended by the President's personal physician, Dr. Presley Marion Rixey (1852-1928; Surgeon General of the US Navy, 1902-1910, Washington, DC, USA). The physician administers chloroform to the bird while a crying nurse holds a sponge and palpates the turkey's pulse with her other hand. In the background, a remorseful President Roosevelt dabs his own tears with a handkerchief (Figure). In America by the late 1800s, nurses had become a significantly important professional group delivering general anesthesia, typically administering ether under the charge of the surgeons. Anesthetic advances included increased appreciation for anesthetic morbidity and
mortality from both older and newer anesthetics; surgical advances included the development of more complex procedures. Two historians have noted, “Surgeons could no longer provide meaningful supervision of non-physician anesthetists while they were operating, so other physicians with expertise in anesthesia began to either administer anesthetics themselves or to supervise the nonphysicians.” 3 This realization gave rise to America's first physiciananesthetist society, which was formed in 1905 on Long Island, New York. Observe that this cartoon features a physician acting as both chloroformist and as supervisor of the nurse assisting him. As such, this cartoon reflects an evolution in the way anesthesia could be administered after the turn of the last century. References 1. Bartholomew CL. The proper way to kill the White House turkey. The Minneapolis Journal. November 28,1906:1. [newspaper editorial cartoon]. 2. Lewis WD. The Life of Theodore Roosevelt. Philadelphia, PA: John C Winston Company; 1919:185. 3. Hoffman RB, Martin DE. The history of modern anesthesia. Pennsylvania Society of Anesthesiologists. Available at: http://www.psanes.org/Home/tabid/37/anid/43/Default. aspx. [Accessed September 8, 2015].
☆ Conflicts of interest: None. ⁎ Corresponding author at: 5247 Wilson Mills Rd, No. 282, Cleveland, OH 44143-3016, USA. Tel.: +1 440 725 0785; fax: +1 888 734 6342. E-mail address: [email protected] (G.S. Bause). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.janh.2015.10.003 2352-4529/© 2015 Anesthesia History Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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L. Tian, G.S. Bause / Journal of Anesthesia History 1 (2015) 129–130
Figure. The Proper Way to Kill the White House Turkey by Charles Lewis Bartholomew. This editorial cartoon was published in The Minneapolis Journal on November 28, 1906.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Anesthesia History journal homepage: www.anesthesiahistoryjournal.org
Ethereal Images
End of Life Care during the Holidays?☆ Lei Tian, MD a, George S. Bause, MD, MPH a,b,c,⁎ a b c
Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, 11100 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine, 2124 Cornell Rd, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA Honorary Curator, American Society of Anesthesiologists, Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology, 1061 American Lane, Schaumburg, IL 60173-4973, USA
In this 1906 political cartoon, The Proper Way to Kill the White House Turkey by Charles Lewis Bartholomew (1869-1949; editorial cartoonist, Minneapolis, MN, USA), the artist comments on one of the scandals surrounding President Theodore Roosevelt (18581919; 26th US President, 1901-1909, Washington, DC, USA). 1 Two years earlier, the President's children had been falsely accused of cruelly chasing a Thanksgiving turkey around the White House grounds. 2 By humanizing the handling of the bird, the artist makes light of how turkeys are traditionally treated in the holiday season. Loosely tethered by his neck, wings, and legs to a lawn chair, this cartoon turkey is attended by the President's personal physician, Dr. Presley Marion Rixey (1852-1928; Surgeon General of the US Navy, 1902-1910, Washington, DC, USA). The physician administers chloroform to the bird while a crying nurse holds a sponge and palpates the turkey's pulse with her other hand. In the background, a remorseful President Roosevelt dabs his own tears with a handkerchief (Figure). In America by the late 1800s, nurses had become a significantly important professional group delivering general anesthesia, typically administering ether under the charge of the surgeons. Anesthetic advances included increased appreciation for anesthetic morbidity and
mortality from both older and newer anesthetics; surgical advances included the development of more complex procedures. Two historians have noted, “Surgeons could no longer provide meaningful supervision of non-physician anesthetists while they were operating, so other physicians with expertise in anesthesia began to either administer anesthetics themselves or to supervise the nonphysicians.” 3 This realization gave rise to America's first physiciananesthetist society, which was formed in 1905 on Long Island, New York. Observe that this cartoon features a physician acting as both chloroformist and as supervisor of the nurse assisting him. As such, this cartoon reflects an evolution in the way anesthesia could be administered after the turn of the last century. References 1. Bartholomew CL. The proper way to kill the White House turkey. The Minneapolis Journal. November 28,1906:1. [newspaper editorial cartoon]. 2. Lewis WD. The Life of Theodore Roosevelt. Philadelphia, PA: John C Winston Company; 1919:185. 3. Hoffman RB, Martin DE. The history of modern anesthesia. Pennsylvania Society of Anesthesiologists. Available at: http://www.psanes.org/Home/tabid/37/anid/43/Default. aspx. [Accessed September 8, 2015].
☆ Conflicts of interest: None. ⁎ Corresponding author at: 5247 Wilson Mills Rd, No. 282, Cleveland, OH 44143-3016, USA. Tel.: +1 440 725 0785; fax: +1 888 734 6342. E-mail address: [email protected] (G.S. Bause). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.janh.2015.10.003 2352-4529/© 2015 Anesthesia History Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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L. Tian, G.S. Bause / Journal of Anesthesia History 1 (2015) 129–130
Figure. The Proper Way to Kill the White House Turkey by Charles Lewis Bartholomew. This editorial cartoon was published in The Minneapolis Journal on November 28, 1906.