The history and practice of surgery in ancient and mediæval times / by James Swain.

  • Swain, James.
Date:
[1909]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The history and practice of surgery in ancient and mediæval times / by James Swain. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Reprinted from “The Bristol Medico-Chirurgical Journal,” December, 1909. THE HISTORY AND PRACTICE OF SURGERY IN ■ ANCIENT AND MEDIT:VAL TIMES. TIIdc ipicsittcnt's i\&»5ve6t5, t»clivcvc& on ©ctolicr I3tb, I90d, at the openincj of tbc UbivtNissiytb Session of tbc 36vistol /lbe&ico=(Ib(vurgical Societig. BY James Swain, M.S., M.D. Lond., F.R.C.S. Eng., Professor of Surgery in the University of Bristol ; Surgeon to the Bristol Royal Infirmary. “ Is there anything whereof it may be said, ‘ See, this is new ’ ? ” The progress of modern surgery owes its recent phenomenal success and expansion to the use of anaesthetics and the prevention of sepsis in wounds. In 1844 the American dentist Horace Wells demonstrated the practicability of using nitrous oxide gas for surgical anaesthesia ; within a few years (1846) ether was used for a similar purpose by Mr. Morton, also an American dentist; and Sir James Young Simpson, of Edinburgh, employed chloroform (1847) a substitute for ether. In 1867 Lord Lister began to publish papers on the antiseptic principle in the practice of surgery, with which his name will always be illustriously associated.