Charles Suckling 2984696 183821886 2008-01-12T11:39:01Z JoeWiki 1344823 add category '''Charles Suckling''' is a [[United Kingdom|British]] [[chemist]] who first synthesised the anaesthetic gas [[halothane]] when working at the [[Imperial Chemical Industries|ICI]] Central Laboratory in [[Widnes]] in the 1950s. At the time of Suckling's original research, the main anaesthetic gases in use were [[chloroform]] and [[diethyl ether|ether]], both of which had several serious drawbacks. Ether was highly flammable, which was particularly dangerous in operating theatres as electrical equipment such as [[diathermy]] became more common. Chloroform was toxic to the liver. The fluorinated [[hydrocarbons]] were a promising group of compounds which were non-flammable and yet volatile. Suckling had worked on such compounds extensively during the Second World War, and synthesised a variety of fluorinated hydrocarbons before evaluating them for anaesthetic properties. He liaised closely with clinicians, initially in setting target physicochemical properties for ideal agents and then later in evaluating the developed compounds. Suckling first investigated halothane's anaesthetic action by experimenting on [[Mealworm|meal worms]] and houseflies, and then forwarded it to [[Jaume Raventos]], a pharmacologist, for evaluation of anaesthesia in other animals. After Raventos established its pharmacological properties, it was given to Dr Michael Johnstone, an anaesthetist in [[Manchester]], England, who recognised its great advantages over the other anaesthetics available and established its first clinical trial in 1956. This process of systematic study of chemical compounds with a set of pre-defined characteristics has been identified as one of the first examples of '[[drug design]]'. ==References== Suckling, C. W. ''Some chemical and physical factors in the development of fluothane.'' Br J Anaesth. 1957 Oct;29(10):466-72. {{DEFAULTSORT:Suckling, Charles}} [[Category:Year of birth missing (living people)]] [[Category:Living people]] [[Category:ICI people]] [[Category:English biochemists]] {{UK-med-bio-stub}}