The Second Anesthetists' Travel Club Meeting: Bootleggers, Madison and Ralph Waters

• Published in: Journal of anesthesia history 2019-12, Vol.5 (4), p.141-144
• Main Author: Bacon, Douglas R.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anesthesiology - history; Congresses as Topic - history; Congresses as Topic - organization & administration; History of medicine and histology; History, 20th Century; Societies, Medical - history; United States; Wisconsin
• ISSN: 2352-4529; 2352-4537
• DOI: 10.1016/j.janh.2019.02.002

The second annual meeting of any organization is almost as critical as the first. A second meeting begins to assure the viability and importance of the organization. After the very successful first meeting of the Anesthetists' Travel Club in Rochester, Minnesota, in December of 1929, Ralph Waters (1883-1979) was charged with hosting the 1930 meeting at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. The meeting was held Thursday December 18th through Saturday December 20th. Dr. Waters started the meeting at 8:00 am with a tour of the operating rooms of the Wisconsin General Hospital. Lunch followed at the Memorial Union with the afternoon split between experimental surgery, and the anatomy, and physiology laboratories. There was an early dinner before the group took in the basketball game between the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Wisconsin. Friday's meeting was very similar; starting in the operating rooms at 8:00 am followed by a Union Club lunch. The afternoon was spent in the Pharmacology laboratory with a 4:00 pm lecture entitled “Demonstration Clinical Effects of Barbiturates in Neuropsychiatry”. Dinner was held at the University Club. Saturday's program followed the same lines, but with an afternoon tea and a dinner at the Waters' home. In February1931, almost a year to the date from his first note, Waters wrote to those who had attended the meeting. He followed up on the clinical cases the group had seen, and commented upon the Guedel-Waters balloons for endotracheal tubes and the spinal he had performed. He even commented upon the use of cyclopropane in obstetrics. Thus, the Anesthetists' Travel Club meeting in 1930 successfully concluded. •First description of the second meeting of the Anesthetists' Travel Club in Madison, WI, December 1930.•Description of the planning of the event, and the criteria that were used for membership.•Specific notations about the nature of the laboratory demonstrations.•Social events included the use of a bootlegger to obtain alcohol during Prohibition•Original source documentation from the Waters' Collection at the University of Wisconsin.