Imagine that you work at one of the nation’s most prestigious hospitals, with intimate access to the most advanced anesthetic equipment available. Faced with the challenge of performing a general anesthetic for an elective surgery on a healthy patient, you decide to induce anesthesia with inhalational ether, stimulate the respiratory drive by administering CO2 and assess oxygenation by closely watching the patient’s skin color.

n the modern practice of anesthesiology, we take pulse oximetry, automated blood pressure cuffs and short-acting, predictable agents for granted. But less than a half-century ago, these everyday implements were experimental at best or even unheard of. Anesthesiology, the first medical specialty born in the United States, has developed from the humble beginnings of the first ether anesthetic to a well-respected and multifaceted field in just over a century and a half, and since the early 1930s, the valuable history of our art has been carefully preserved by the Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology (WLM), located at the ASA headquarters building in Park Ridge, Illinois.

The WLM, the largest museum in the world dedicated to the history of anesthesiology, features such rare items as William Harvey’s “An Anatomical Study of the Motion of the Heart and of the Blood in Animals,” Morton’s ether inhalers, a vintage 1860s nitrous oxide machine and personal correspondence from giants in our field, including Wood, Waters and Lundy. In addition to its exhaustive compilation of modern books and journals, the WLM houses a priceless rare book collection and artifacts critical to explaining our past. A collection of videos titled “The Living History of Anesthesiology” features one-on-one interviews with anesthesiologists whose contributions to our specialty define who we are today. The annual Lewis H. Wright Memorial Lecture at the ASA Annual Meeting also is sponsored by the WLM.

For scholars interested in historically based academic pursuits, the WLM offers four fully funded three-week fellowships annually, allowing intensive primary-source experience with its in-house resources. It is indeed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit the museum, meet the dedicated and knowledgeable staff and satisfy one’s intellectual curiosity.

As anesthesiologists and residents, we cannot address many of the challenges facing our specialty today without the benefit of knowing our past. To protect our training programs, understand the roles of other providers or effect changes in legislations, techniques or equipment, we must be armed with the knowledge behind these issues.

As the three resident representatives to the WLM Board of Trustees, we have had the incomparable opportunity of visiting and learning about the WLM’s great offerings and importance in maintaining the heritage of our specialty. We’ve had the good fortune of meeting some of the giants of today while helping in the preservation of the memory of giants past. We’ve been surprised by just how much we’ve learned and have enjoyed the experience, and we encourage any provider, staff or resident to get involved with this important organization. Serve on a committee. Contribute your personal archives and artifacts. Take advantage of an opportunity not offered by many other medical specialties. Visit the museum and its Web site at www.woodlibrarymuseum.org. Find out why the oxygen cylinder is green, why we use a pulse oximeter and why a pencil-point spinal needle even exists. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Shiva Birdi, M.D., is a CA-3 resident at Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio.

Corry J. Kucik, M.D., D.M.C.C., is Lt. Cmdr, Medical Corps, United States Navy, and is a CA-2 resident, National Capital Consortium Anesthesiology Residency, National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland.

Alexander Wolfson, M.D., is Clinical Instructor, Division of Obstetric and Regional Anesthesia, Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland.