 In 1939 , American physician Albert R. <unk> Jr. began exploring the causes of " <unk> " in deep @-@ sea divers . He tested the effects of varying the breathing mixtures on his subjects , and discovered that this caused the divers to perceive a change in depth . From his results , he deduced that xenon gas could serve as an anesthetic . Although Russian <unk> <unk> V. <unk> apparently studied xenon anesthesia in 1941 , the first published report confirming xenon anesthesia was in 1946 by American medical researcher John H. Lawrence , who experimented on mice . Xenon was first used as a surgical anesthetic in 1951 by American <unk> Stuart C. Cullen , who successfully operated on two patients . 
