History
Sodium thiopental was discovered in the early 1930s by Ernest H. Volwiler and Donalee L. Tabern, working for Abbott Laboratories. It was first used in human beings on March 8, 1934, by Dr. Ralph M. Waters in an investigation of its properties, which were short-term anesthesia and surprisingly little analgesia. Three months later, Dr. John S. Lundy started a clinical trial of thiopental at the Mayo Clinic at the request of Abbott. Abbott continued to make the drug until 2004, when it spun off its hospital-products division as Hospira.
Thiopental is famously associated with a number of anesthetic deaths in victims of the attack on Pearl Harbor. These deaths, relatively soon after the substance's discovery, were due to excessive doses given to shocked trauma patients. Evidence has become available through freedom of information legislation and has been reviewed in the British Journal of Anaesthesia. Thiopental anaesthesia was in its early days, but nevertheless 13 of 344 wounded admitted to the Tripler Army Hospital did not survive.
Thiopental is still rarely used as a recreational drug, usually stolen from veterinarians or other legitimate users of the drug; however, more common sedatives such as benzodiazepines are usually preferred as recreational drugs, and abuse of thiopental tends to be uncommon and opportunistic.
Read more about this topic: Sodium Thiopental
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“America is, therefore the land of the future, where, in the ages that lie before us, the burden of the World’s history shall reveal itself. It is a land of desire for all those who are weary of the historical lumber-room of Old Europe.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“Social history might be defined negatively as the history of a people with the politics left out.”
—G.M. (George Macaulay)
“The basic idea which runs right through modern history and modern liberalism is that the public has got to be marginalized. The general public are viewed as no more than ignorant and meddlesome outsiders, a bewildered herd.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)