First use of ether anaesthesia under combat conditions

In their paper on Nikolay Pirogov, ¹ the authors state categorically that the first time that ether was used under combat conditions was during the Russian war in the Caucasus of 1847, but this may not be so. Ether was available in the spring of 1847 to American military surgeons at Santa Cruz in the Mexican-American War but its first use in combat was “on an unspecified day in the summer” of that year. ² Pirogov had left St. Petersburg in the first week of June, travelling by carriage and stopping at several towns en route to instruct local doctors in the use of anaesthesia. ³ It is therefore unlikely that he could have reached the battlefields in the Caucasus, a journey of about 2400 km, before late June or early July. All one can say therefore is that anaesthesia under combat conditions was first used by both American and Russian surgeons during the summer of 1847.