I work as an anaesthetist during the week and play with cars at the weekend, but the two are not as far apart as might be supposed. Not many people know that anaesthesia in Britain owes an enormous debt to a scion of the car industry.

William Morris, the proprietor of Morris Garages in Oxford, once underwent a surgical operation. He survived, but the anaesthetic left him violently ill afterwards. He was therefore very apprehensive before his next operation, but his second anaesthetist, Dr. Robert Macintosh, blew the gases so competently that he felt surprisingly well afterwards.

William Morris later became a peer, and, as Lord Nuffield, wished to show his gratitude for good medicine by endowing Nuffield professorships in medicine, surgery and anaesthesia in the University of Oxford. That stuffy body was quite happy to accept the chairs in medicine and surgery, but anaesthesia was not respectable enough to rate as an academic discipline. Lord Nuffield responded in terms of the offer being all or nothing, and furthermore he had a good idea that the first professor was going to be Dr. Macintosh. Eventually the University capitulated, and accepted all three endowments.

Macintosh thus became the first Professor of Anaesthesia in the country. He was an inspired choice, and the department he founded and led became world-famous. He himself designed an instrument which is still used by all anaesthetists today. Lord Nuffield's name is also not forgotten. If you go into any British hospital for an operation, there is still a chance that a Nuffield ventilator (named after though not designed by him) will be used during the anaesthetic. History does not, however, relate that you will never be sick when driven in a car from the Cowley factory.

Copyright PHP Harris 1999

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