Vital Times 2017 - 87

The Ongoing Impact of
Edmond (Ted) I. Eger II on
the Practice of Anesthesia
By Lawrence Saidman, MD

Laboratory Personnel Severinghaus - Eger Laboratory 1963-64. From left: Drs. Richard Shargel, Cedric Bainton, Lawrence Saidman, Robert Mitchell,
Freeman Bradley, Edmond Eger, Edwin Munson, Dorothy Herbert, and John Severinghaus.

Edmond (Ted) I. Eger II, MD, my colleague, lifelong
mentor, and dear friend died August 26, 2017, in his
home, from pancreatic cancer at the age of 86. I was
among Ted's earliest research fellows and as a lifelong
friend and colleague was privileged to observe how
research by Ted, his colleagues, trainees, and their
academic progeny transformed our specialty from a
clinical art to a scientifically grounded discipline in
the latter half of the 20th century.
Following graduation from Northwestern Medical
School in 1955, Ted completed his internship
at St Luke's Hospital in 1956, and his residency
at the University of Iowa in 1958. His next two
years were spent in the United States Army at Fort
Leavenworth, Kansas. Ted worked through the
mathematical principles that governed the onset and
offset of inhaled anesthetic drug effect in his office, a

converted attic. Following discharge from the Army,
Ted joined the Department of Anesthesia at the
University of California San Francisco in 1960. He
stayed there for his entire academic career, building
a research team that created the experimental basis
to understanding the principles governing inhaled
anesthetics in animals, and humans. Ted's research
arose from the rare serendipity of perfectly aligned
stars: mathematical ability and passion for precision,
John Severinghaus' penetrating questions, world-class
research resources at UCSF, and the fundamental
unasked and unanswered questions in anesthesiology.
In my opinion, the most important of Ted's early
studies were: developing the concept of MAC,
explaining and applying pharmacokinetic principles
underlying uptake and distribution of inhaled
anesthetics, and characterizing the pharmacology
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Annual Publication 2017 | 87

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