The thermodynamics of general anesthesia On The (Sound) Track Of Anesthetics How can one anesthetize a nerve so that feel ceases and it is possible to operate on a patient without pain? It has been known for more than 100 years that substances like ether, laughing gas, chloroform, procaine and the noble gas xenon can serve as anesthetics. The molecules of these substances have very different sizes and chemical properties, but experience shows that their doses are strictly determined by their solubility in olive oil. Current expertise is so advanced that it is possible to calculate precisely how much of a given material is required for the patient. In spite of this, no one knows precisely how anesthetics work. How are the nerves "turned off"? Starting from their theory that nerve signals are sound pulses, Thomas Heimburg and Andrew D. Jackson turned their attention to anesthesia. The chemical properties of anesthetics are all so different, but their effects are all the same - curious! But the curious turned out to be simple. If a nerve is to be able to transport sound pulses and send signals along the nerve, its membrane must have the property that its melting point is sufficiently close to body temperature and responds appropriately to changes in pressure. The effect of anesthetics is simply to change the melting point -- and when the melting point has been changed, sound pulses cannot propagate. The nerve is put on stand-by, and neither nerve pulses nor sensations are transmitted. The patient is anesthetized and feels nothing. Exciting times in anesthesia. First an novel agent for reversal of neuromuscular blockade: Sugammadex. Now a theory that anesthesia works by sound, fortunately the anesthesiologist already was the diskjockey in the OR....