CHIN UP!
A recent investigation of the idea that some of the early deaths under anaesthesia were caused by respiratory obstruction led to the discovery that the word cyanosis is not to be found in any of John Snow’s publications.
The reports of operations which appeared weekly in The Lancet during the few months when general anaesthesia was still a novelty indicate that patients, at times including Snow’s, were often cyanosed, or livid, and congested, but this small detail does not appear in his own accounts.
It is intriguing, therefore, to try to trace the first concerns about the maintenance of a clear airway, and the methods used to achieve this.
Humiliatingly, it seems that the first publication on the subject was by a surgeon, although no ordinary one.