Surgical experience of chloroform / By James Miller.

  • Miller, James, 1812-1864.
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Surgical experience of chloroform / By James Miller. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    toms; and that, by aggravation of these, life will speedily be overborne. By chloroform, is it not more than probable that this risk will be either in great measure or wholly ob¬ viated ? And in consequence, may not surgeons be war¬ ranted in affording relief, by their art, to patients who other¬ wise would have been left a helpless prey to the most miser¬ able disease. Formerly, no surgeon would meddle with him, for a two-fold reason ; one half selfish, the other humane; risk to reputation, and risk to life. Now, he is cut as another patient; but, if possible, with still greater care; and the re¬ sult hoped for is, not that the operation, by its primary effect, acting unfavourably on the renal disease, will kill; but that the operation, by its secondary effect, successfully removing the irritating and disease-engendering stone, will act favour¬ ably on the kidneys, and tend to give the patient a double delivery; first from the stone, and then, more gradually, from renal trouble also. And the same kind of reasoning may also be applied to cases of diseased bladder, complicating cal¬ culus. Here is an example to the point. A boy, eleven years old, was admitted, under my care, in the Hospital, on the 29th of January last. Since four years of age, he had suffered constantly from stoppage in his water;” but the com¬ plaint had become much worse during the last two years. In addition to the ordinary symptoms of stone, he had a wasted, wan, miserable look about him, very suggestive of kidney dis¬ ease ; his water continually dribbled from him, his prepuce was angry and long through much pulling, he stank urinously, and his face wore an unbroken expression of pain. There was pain over the kidneys, as well as in the vesical region; the urine was coagulable by nitric acid and by heat, occasionally bloody, almost always turbid, depositing a white sediment; and this sediment was found to contain both blood globules and pus, besides abundance of the phosphates. A day or two after admission, 1 made an attempt to sound him ; scarcely expecting to find a stone—so marked was the renal expression in the case. Stupidly I did not employ chloroform, and I had at once to desist. The entrance of the instrument caused a shriek of agony ; and, clasped tightly by spasm of both