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The Harold Griffith Symposium is the pinnacle of the Scientific Programme, honouring the first President of the WFSA and the WFSA itself.
| HAROLD RANDALL GRIFFITH, MD, CM, OC 1894-1985 |
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Dr. Harold Randall Griffith was one of the great contributors
to world medicine. The outstanding achievement of his
career was the introduction of muscle relaxants to the
practice of anaesthesia on 23rd January, 1942. Almost one hundred years after
ether anaesthesia had been demonstrated by William Morton, he revolutionized
the practice of anaesthesia by demonstrating that a substance, which until then
had been considered a poison, could be safely used to produce muscle relaxation
for surgery. |
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Historians sometimes now refer to anaesthesia as “before and after
Griffith”. On that day he took a giant step forward in reducing anaesthesia
morbidity and mortality, which allowed for the rapid development of surgery.
He served as Anaesthetist-in-Chief at the Homeopathic Hospital, subsequently
called the Queen Elizabeth Hospital from 1923 to 1959, and remained active as
an anaesthesiologist until 1966. Harold Griffith’s second major contribution to
anaesthesia was his election and subsequent leadership as first elected president
of the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists (WFSA). The choice
to establish a federation of national societies rather than another society of
individuals has inspired anaesthesiologists worldwide to create their national
anaesthesia training programme and set up a national society. We are here
thanks to him on whose shoulders we stand.
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