Address of the President at the annual meeting of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, Tuesday, March 1, 1859.

  • Locock, Charles, 1799-1875.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address of the President at the annual meeting of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, Tuesday, March 1, 1859. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Physician-Extraordinary to G-eorge TV., William IV., and to her present Majesty. I cannot better conclude this sketch of the distinguished career of Sir James than by quoting the fol- lowing words from the dispatches of the Duke of Wellington: I have every reason to be satisfied with the manner in which Dr. Macgrigor conducted the department under his direction, and I consider him one of the most industrious, able, and successful public servants I have ever met with.*' Dr. John Snow, so well known in this Society, died on the 16th of June last, at the age of forty-five. It was during his year of office as one of our Council that an attack of apoplexy deprived us of one who frequently took part in our debates, and who most assiduously attended to his duties in the council-room. Dr. Snow paid great attention to the investigation of cholera, and published some papers on his views of the eflect of drinking impure water as propagating that disease; but he has been chiefly known to the profession in connexion with chloroform, a subject which he took up with great earnestness and success soon after Dr. Simpson's first introduction of it. His researches into the best mode of its administration, and its effects on animals, are well known, and he was perhaps more extensively conversant with its operation, and more successful in administer- ing it, than any living person. Dr. Snow was in constant requi- sition by all the principal London surgeons at their operations, and, indeed, devoted himself to it as his chief branch of practice. It has been supposed that out of the many thousand cases in which he used it, only one death occurred. It is well known that he was engaged to administer chloroform to our Queen in her two last confinements with his usual success, though in cases of labour perhaps there is less opportunity for any peculiar skill being shown, as the chloroform can only be properly given in an ordinary case, under the direction and control of the accoucheur, as to the time of giving it and withholding it, and the degree of effect to be produced. Dr. Snow, about a year before his death, had introduced a new anaesthetic agent, from which he had hoped great things—amylene, and expected it would not only be likely to produce less unpleasant effects than chloroform, but