Anesthesia was developed to block or prevent pain during medical procedures. Anesthesia has been the backbone of the medical world for about 100 years now. Early anesthetics were primitive, and many patients simply did not trust anesthetics. Anesthesia is still a risky process even in today's advanced medical world. Anesthesia is not used to treat or diagnose any specific disease; the sole purpose is to help both the patient and the surgeon during the procedures. However, anesthesia is used in different ways depending on the extent of the procedure. There are three levels of anesthesia which include; local, regional and general anesthesia. An anesthesiologist determines what type of anesthesia will be needed. Local anesthesia is used for minor procedures and is the safest of the three types of anesthesia. [1] The main goal of this anesthetic is to block pain in a small region of the body. An example of a procedure where a local anesthetic can be used is when a patient has a large gouge in the skin and stitches are needed to heal the patient. Regional anesthetics are used to block a specific larger region of the body. A patient would be induced with regional anesthesia during a cesarean surgery or if it was necessary to conduct an operation on a limb of the body. [2] General anesthesia is the most dangerous and powerful of the three.[4] When a patient undergoes an operation such as heart surgery, they are placed unconscious for the duration of the surgery using general anesthesia. There is no difference between local and regional anaesthetics.[1] They differ only in the way they are injected. For local anesthesia, an injection of local anesthetic is injected around the surgical area. For example, if a... middle of paper... neurotransmission. Injected anesthetics are thought to rapidly block the receptor site, also preventing neurotransmission.[5]Works Cited1) Gmyrek, Robyn. "Local and regional anesthesia". Ed. Dirk M. Elston. MedScape.03 August 2011. Web. 4 December 2011.2) Fozzard, Harry A., Michael F. Sheets, and Dorothy A. Hanck. "The sodium channel as a target for local anesthetic drugs". PubMed. 01 November 2011. Web. 4 December 2011.3) Ritchison, Gary. "Human physiology: neurons and the nervous system". People – Eastern Kentucky University. Network. December 4, 2011. .4) Desai, Arjun M. "General Anesthesia." Ed. Meda Raghavendra. Medscape.3 August 2011. Web. 4 December 2011.5) Hemmings, H.M. “Sodium channels and synaptic mechanisms of inhaled anesthetics.” Oxford Journals. Oxford UP, 9 June 2009. Web. 4 December. 2011.