| Title | Bioengineering and Anesthesia |
| Author(s) | Terence W. Murphy, MD; Valentino D. B. Mazzia, MD |
| Source | Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, Vol. 45, No. 3, Pages 301-307 |
| Publication Date | March, 1969 |
| Abstract | We discuss two opposing phenomena in this article, namely the contribution which "bioengineering" has made and is making to anesthesia, and the resistance to technology evinced by anesthesiologists. These phenomena are not limited to anesthesiology; they pertain also to the entire field of medicine. The most important and valid reason for the failure of the modalities of servocontrol to become integrated into clinical practice was that the complexity of the clinical task is too great for such a relatively simple device. Now the digital computer gies us the ability to match this complexity. Any rule used digitally can be programmed into the computer and carried out unfailingly with the aid of suitable transducers. This will lead to greater quantification of anesthesia and intensive care and, as happened in the servocontrol era, the usefulness of such quantification will be evaluated easily. This should lead to a rapid growth of understanding of the complex physiology of anesthesia and intensive care. |