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Elderly adults are living longer, and causes of death are shifting. At the same time, autopsy rates are at or near their lowest in history.
The highest suicide rate in the United States is among people ages 65 years and older. Almost 15% of people in this age group commit suicide every year.
Cocaine was isolated in 1860 and first used as a local anesthetic in 1884. Its first clinical use was by Sigmund Freud to wean a patient from morphine addiction. The fictional character Sherlock Holmes was supposed to be addicted to cocaine by injection.
Oliver Wendell Holmes is credited with introducing the words "anesthesia" and "anesthetic" into the English language in 1846.
When blood is exposed to air, it clots. Heparin allows the blood to come in direct contact with air without clotting.