How is it possible to perform an operation on someone who is drunk?

Question

I remember seeing a movie and also reading in books about the wild west that before anesthesia was discovered, doctors would operate on people using alcohol as an anesthetic. Does this practice still exist? Is it possible to successfully operate on someone who has passed out after too much drinking? I also heard a similar story about a girl who claimed to have lost her virginity without feeling a thing, because her boyfriend supposedly got her drunk, then "took advantage" when she was passed out. Could something like that happen, presuming the alcohol was not laced with any other substances?

Answer 1

In situations you mentioned and to answer your queries, YES!

Alcohol can cause CENTRAL NERVOUS DEPRESSION and can mediate SEDATIVE or HYPNOTIC EFFECTS and not to forget to mention that it got some level of ANALGESIC EFFECTS as well as DISINFECTANT actions.

Higher blood alcohol levels can result to impairment of balance, speech, vision, hearing and muscle coordination,and not to forget the feelings of EUPHORIA (very intense happiness and feelings of well-being). It may cause impairment and loss of physical and mental control.

In the case of doing SURGICAL OPERATION in a drunk person,it is very possible.Depending on the level of alcohol in the blood, the person may be in deep sleep or can be half conscious but had lost or decreased his/her physical and mental control. The person may feel some pain though but decreased by analgesic effects of alcohol.

Such practice I believe are still done in extraordinary situations. But generally, doing such would be the last option when appropriate facilities for operation are entirely INACCESSIBLE. Severely increased amount of alcohol can raise blood alcohol levels that can result to a DEEP COMA and possibly DEATH, so that would be placed as one of the concerns over doing such.

About the rape situation, YES it can happen. A severely drunk girl could be in DEEP SLEEP. Let say the girl can be partly conscious and had sensed SOMETHING is going on, still she could not do anything. For as long as she is INTOXICATED, physical and mental control is out of her hands.

Answer 2

Alcohol has sedative and anesthetic properties, but it's a very sloppy and dangerous anesthetic. One of the biggest risks of anesthesia is aspiration of gastric contents (inhaling your vomit). Alcohol not only fills your stomach with something to aspirate, it also makes reflux and regurgitation more likely, so it would NEVER be used as an anesthetic now.

Drunk people ARE operated on, though. Usually on Friday and Saturday nights, in the trauma room. We have to make allowances and modifications to our anesthesia to account for the patient's intoxication.

Enough alcohol can put you into a coma or kill you. It happens all too often.

Answer 3

If I wasn't unconscience, drunk would be the only way you would operate on me!!!

In the old days, whiskey was the staple, and maybe a few shots helped some. But, they didn't drink you until out. It was have a few shots, then bite the bullet (another old expression meaning, "deal with it").

As far as the rest of that story, I would suspect a possible "date rape" drug snuck in her drink to make her pass out. That could be put in any drink, alcohol or not.

Never let someone you don't know well "buy" you a drink, unless the bartender puts the drink down in front of you. Anyone that handles the drink before you get it, could put something in it.

But, read below...it seems to have some strange effects on others! LOL!!!

Answer 4

absolutly.... alcohol is not only a CNS depressant, but also a dissinfectant, so if the surgeon of the wild wild west was smart enough to both knock his patient out with the drug as well as treat the area of operation with it that patient might survive!!! CNS depressants are a class of drugs that are used for anaethesia, they work by activating inhibitory signals on the brain and thus loss of motory and or sensory function. Alcohol in high enough doses can have this effect and is a subject of many "date rape" incidences.

The problem with preforming surgeries on people who are drunk is that their is excessive bleeding due to thinning of the blood as well as its not very strong and not very specific in its actions. so....in the wild wild west, if the patient did not die from surgery or infection and alchol was known to make men feel 1000x stronger than thats how the practice probably came about.

Answer 5

Surgery was performed with restraints on the patient prior to the use of ether. One can imagine alcohol and opiates as welcome adjuncts. Laudanum was tincture (alcoholic solution) of Opium. Tinctures of Cannabis, Belladonna (scopolamine as an anaesthetic) So yes.

Scop. and morphine work well together and constitute "twilight anaesthesia", an old orally-administered technique.

A fictional modern non-anaesthetic surgery is depicted in movie "Ronin" (bullet-removal) and others.

Rape is possible even without alcohol according to Legal Medicine texts. Hymeneal injury-pain is variable, making it theoretically possible for a virgin to be raped in sleep.

Heed the warnings above. GHB (gamma-hydroxy butyrate) is a prevalent illicit CNS depressant which could O.D. you.
And, speaking of Scop, 50% of Bogota ER tox-admissions are due to scopolamine, often prior to robbery or rape. It can be absorbed dermally. It also is an amnesic and has a frighteningly low safety ratio (effective dose/toxic dose).

Morbid subjects, but there you have it.

Answer 6

It's possible. Alcohol is a sedative and knocks people out. Of course it works better in the movies. Alcohol can make you unconscious and a person can have sex with an unconscious person without the unconscious person feeling it at the time.

Answer 7

yes alcohol is an anesthetic, however it has a very fine line between the dosage that causes anesthesia and the dose that will kill you. this is probably not practiced anymore, there are many safer and more effective alternatives.