The influence of anaesthesia on the surgery of the nineteenth century / by John Collins Warren.

  • Warren, John Collins, 1842-1927.
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The influence of anaesthesia on the surgery of the nineteenth century / by John Collins Warren. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    the patient was bearing the pain with great bravery. After suffering some seconds she said earnestly, I hope, sir, it will not be long. No, indeed, replied Abernethy, with great feeling; that would be too horrible. Cheselden is said to have seldom slept the night before an operation, so much did he dread it; yet he was always cool and firm and dextrous in its performance. It is probable that the dread of patients was not confined to the operation, for in early days the after- treatment was of the most torturing description. Every flap of skin, instead of being reunited, was cut away; every open wound was dressed as a sore, and every deep one was plugged up with a tent lest it should heal. No attempt at first intention was made. Long tents were thrust into wounds of the neck and cheek until the neck and head swelled enormously. Even in compound fractures dressings were thrust between the ends of broken bones, as if they had been afraid of the formation of callus.1 At the opening of the century the improvement of the technique of the French school was very no- ticeable. This was due not only to the organizing powers of Napoleon, but to the development of mili- tary surgery. The influence of such work as was done by Larrey upon French surgery must have been enormous. It is said that Larrey performed alone in one day two hundred amputations after the battle of Moscow. His operations were not confined to amputations alone. His memoirs contain accounts of double amputations of the thigh, resection of the head of the humerus, pharyngotomy for the removal of a portion of a bayonet compressing the laryngeal nerve, and several cases of wounds of the abdomen 1 Physic and Physicians.