NorthShore University HealthSystem School of Nurse Anesthesia

History & Fun Facts

• •History American Civil War and the 19th Century Among the first American nurses to provide anesthetics was Catherine S.
• •It was during the Second Battle of Bull Run in 1863 that she administered chloroform to wounded soldiers who needed emergency operations in the battlefield.
• •The earliest recorded nurse to specialize in anesthesia was Sister Mary Bernard Sheridan, a Catholic nun who practiced in 1877 at St.
• •Nuns of the Third Order of the Hospital Sisters of St Francis from Münster established a community in Springfield, Illinois, and on June 22, 1879, they founded St John's Hospital.
• •Catherine Lawrence (1820-1904) in a photograph taken during the American Civil War In 1883, Minnesota was devastated by a tornado.