Beer's Law Lab
By. McKaylah Eldridge
Why did you do this lab?
Aunt Elda went in to get her appendix removed and the doctor gave her anesthesia and she never woke up. Did the doctor give her too much anesthesia or did she die from something else? We were the CSI team working to figure this out. The anesthesia that the doctor used for her was left behind for us, so we had a sample, and we tested the solutions against other solutions and we figured it out. We needed to find out if the anesthesia the doctor gave her was the normal amount or over 40% anesthesia. Over 40% of anesthesia is too much. We needed to find the concentration and the absorbency in the solution by using cuvettes (third picture below). We put the cuvettes over 3/4ths filled into the colerimeter (middle picture below) and tested it on the computer through logger pro and thats how we got our graph. The first picture below is the complete set up of this experiment.
Why wont aunt elda wake up?
Aunt Elda wouldnt wake up because she had too much anesthesia. We found this out by using a colorimeter and a cuvette. we put the cuvette inside of the colorimeter and then we tested the absorbtion of light through the anesthesia and found out that she had 20% anestesia over the limit of 40%. The graph below shows the consentration and the absorbance of the light through the solution (anesthesia).
How do you measure anesthesia?
How to make the percents of the anesthesia: to make 10%, subtract 10 from 100, which is 90. so 90% water and 10% green dye. To make 15%, subtract 15 from 100, which is 85, so 85% water, 15% green dye and you do the same exact thing with 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, and 100%. 100% is all anesthesia (green dye) with no water.
Background on anesthesia
According to http://www.todaysgeriatricmedicine.com/news/ex_020110_01.shtml,
"Anesthesia today is, in general, very safe; however, there are some risks for anyone undergoing surgery and anesthesia. And the occurrence of complications tends to be higher for the aging population. Most of the anesthetic risk to older patients is related to existing medical conditions rather than to age, but it’s still crucial to give this age group specialized attention when it comes to anesthesia use. To ensure your patients and clients have the best and safest possible experience with anesthesia, it’s important to be educated on the facts."
In the end, we found out that aunt elda indeed died of anesthesia. Those silly doctors need to learn how to measure like we did today. The end.