Early SAAD

1930 - 1950

In the early 1930's Stanley Drummond Jackson was a dentist practising in Yorkshire. He was the son of a dentist. In those days dentists largely employed general medical practitioners to provide nitrous oxide based anaesthesia for their patients. Generations of children grew up to know the dread of "gas" at the dentists... As a young dentist Drummond Jackson or ‘DJ' as he became known later, was appalled at the inadequacy and poor quality of general anaesthetic provision for dentistry.

Stanley Drummond Jackson                 SAAD Logo 'Abolish pain to conquer fear'

In a way that would now be considered totally unacceptable but was then completely permissible, Drummond Jackson experimented with new intravenous anaesthetic drugs given by the “venal route” and introduced from Germany and America. By trial and error, he developed a method of intravenous anaesthesia that worked providing fast onset, variable operating time, and quick recovery. DJ was enthusiastic about his technique and over the next seven years he recorded over 8000 successful cases. The Second World War intervened.

Afterwards DJ set up a practice at 53 Wimpole Street, London and continued his use of intravenous anaesthesia. He ran a thriving practice and caught not only the attention of patients wanting oblivion for their dentistry, but also the attention of a group of fascinated medical and dental practitioners. One of these was Dr Henry Mandiwall, a consultant oral surgeon and an accomplished film maker. Together they made a film on venepuncture techniques for general practice. This film was accepted by the British Medical Association and became the first of a series of films detailing DJ's intravenous technique adopted by various teaching bodies.

1955 - 1957

In 1955 DJ started a study club which rapidly grew and by 1957 the Society for the Advancement of Anaesthesia in Dentistry was born. SAAD’s first president was Mr Alan Thompson, a consultant oral surgeon at Guy’s Hospital, London.

Alan Thompson

 Professor Sir Robert MacIntosh

It was fortuitous that from the start SAAD attracted the interest of the great and the good. The Society's Trust Deed was drawn up by the Lord Chancellor of England together with a future eminent professor of anaesthesia.

Robert MacIntosh (later Professor Sir Robert MacIntosh) attended meetings because at the time he was providing anaesthesia for dentistry at a dental practice in Mayfair. Although pursuing a fellowship in surgery MacIntosh needed the money dental anaesthesia brought in. Unwittingly SAAD was to become a catalyst in the academic and clinical development of anaesthesia in the UK. MacIntosh gave an anaesthetic in the Mayfair dental practice to Sir William Morris (of early motor car fame and fortune). 

Sir William Morris had previously had an unpleasant anaesthetic experience, but MacIntosh's intravenous dental anaesthetic had changed his view. Morris and MacIntosh became friends and subsequently Morris told MacIntosh that Oxford University had approached him with a plan to endow chairs in medicine, surgery, and midwifery.

MacIntosh persuaded Sir William Morris that to endow a chair in anaesthesia would be both innovative and extraordinary. Ultimately Sir William offered Oxford University, four Chairs including anaesthesia and funding of £1 million.

Opposed to the anaesthetic chair, Oxford University declined so Sir William offered the university £2 million to include anaesthesia on a take-it or leave-it basis.
Unable to resist such a magnificent offer, Oxford University established the first department of anaesthetics in Europe.

Sir Robert MacIntosh became the first Professor of Anaesthesia in Europe and Sir William Morris became Lord Nuffield.