History Day Outline (For Research)

This outline will help you to focus your research as well as complete each of the components of
your project. If you are absent, you should complete this research on your own so you can stay
on track! Each day, you will receive a grade for your work in class.
Day 2: Connecting your topic to the theme
Below, give a brief (6-7 sentences) summary of how your topic connects to the theme
(encounter, exchange, exploration). Include important people, events or ideas that are key to
your topic.
The topic on Health and medicine in this State greatly connects to the theme of exploration, for
in this state we have accomplished many great things and have gone to great lengths in the
exploration of new improvements towards the field of Medicine. For in this State we were the
first to bring up the first eye infirmary in the whole US, And with this we were also able to initiate
new treatments for mental illnesses. But that's not all, for in this Great State of Connecticut,
some of our own people, like Dentists Horace Wells and William Morton playing instrumental
roles in the exploration and development of anesthesia for dental and other medical
applications.
Day 3: Roots of the Issue- A historical look at your issue leading up to your topic
Prior to the 1840s, doctors and dentists did not routinely use anesthesia when operating on
patients. Most doctors attempted surgery only when it was absolutely necessary to save a
person's life, and operations were largely limited to amputations and removal of external
growths. Although alcohol, opium or other botanicals sometimes helped alleviate the agony,
most surgical patients remained conscious and endured excruciating pain.
Day 4: Context- What is happening during the time in relation to your topic?
In the 1840s a struggling medical student from Vermont wanted to make some money. With
nitrous oxide as the central prop Gardner Q. Colton created a traveling road show, advertising
A Grand Exhibition of the Effects Produced by Inhaling Nitrous Oxide, Exhilarating, or Laughing
Gas! A show that Horace wells attended with his wife Elizabeth and where he recognised that
nitrous oxide might prove a godsend to surgical medicine. Through this discovery In 1846, a
dentist publicly demonstrated that ether, a colorless liquid that vaporizes quickly, would put
patients to sleep during surgery. The practice began to spread. Doctors and dentists soaked a
sponge or a cloth with ether and had patients breathe in the fumes through an inhaler. The
fumes knocked the person out, but there was no way to control the amount inhaled. If patients
inhaled too little, they could wake up during surgery and flail about in pain; if they inhaled too
much, they might never wake

Day 5: The Action- This is general information about your topic (including the encounter,
exchange and/or exploration)
My topic focuses on anesthesia a preventer and reducer of feeling of pain or sensation during
surgery or other painful procedures, and Horace Wells, who was a Connecticut dentist who
pioneered the use of Anesthesia in dentistry, and who influenced other Doctors in their
exploration of Anesthesia.
Primary Sources:

Day 6: Immediate Critical Reaction- How did people react during the time of your topic?
People were quite excited for the for now they could have surgeries without dying or being
mentally traumatised afterwards. Many Doctors as well were excited with the outcome of
Anesthesia, like Crawford Long who on March 30,1842 publicly administered ether to a man
undergoing surgery for a tumor. Though notes were made about how the man moved and made
extraordinary expressions, he didnt scream like someone whose body was being cut into, and
that was what Crawford and the other Doctors were looking for

Day 7: Long Term Impact- How is the world different because of your topic? What do
people think about your topic today?
General anesthesia changed medicine practically overnight. Today it is easy to forget the
burden of surgical pain for Life-saving procedures like open-heart surgery, brain surgery or
organ transplantation would be impossible without general anesthesia.

Day 8- Creation of your thesis/claim and conclusion

Your thesis/claim should center around how your topic illustrates the theme and how it had an
impact on the world.
Through the exploration and improvement of safer and more bearable forms of patient
operations. The use of anesthesia a newer pain sedative was created by Dr. Horace Wells. The
use of this new pain sedative soon opened the way for more complex and time staking
surgeries to take place

Website selected

http://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/anesthesia/details/why-its-done/icc-20163585

Expert questions
1. Which type of anesthesia is best for me if I am having Reconstructive surgery?
2. What should I avoid eating or drinking before coming in for surgery?
3. Is it alright for someone to come alone or should should they come with
someone?
4. Is it alright for a person to take medications for something like allergies or
something before coming in for the surgery?
5. What is the chance of a serious complication from being under anesthesia?
6. How will a physician know how much anesthesia to give to their patients ?
7. What are the risks behind someone my age being on anesthesia?
8. How will someone feel after being on anesthesia ?
9. Is it be possible for someone to become conscious during surgery while on
anesthesia?
10. Is it possible for someone to feel something if they were to become conscious
during surgery ?
Random Person
1. What types of surgeries require the use of anesthesia?
2. Have you ever been on any type of anesthesia?
3. Is anesthesia affective?
4. How did it feel to be on anesthesia?
5. What are the dangers of being on anesthesia?
6. What is anesthesia?
7. Who's in charge of giving a patient the anesthesia?
8. What were some of the old forms of anesthesia?
9. Do you think the world is better because of anesthesia?
10. Who invented anesthesia?