The history of anesthesia and perioperative monitoring

Introduction The discoveries that facilitated patient monitoring in the perioperative period occurred long before the introduction of clinical anesthesia. Respiratory patterns had been described since antiquity. The rise of scientific methods in Renaissance Europe led to the initial experiments in hemodynamics – specifically, animal experiments demonstrating that blood flows under pressure. The earliest source that cited correct observations of arterial and venous flow and pressures was William Harvey's De Motu Cordis, published in 1628. In the following century, Stephen Hales offered the first quantification of arterial blood pressure measured in the horse. The first cardiac catheterization was performed by Claude Bernard in 1844.