A practical guide to the administration of anaesthetics / by R.J. Probyn-Williams.

  • Probyn-Williams, R. J.
Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical guide to the administration of anaesthetics / by R.J. Probyn-Williams. 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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    any violent movements to throw off the bed-clothes he does not become unduly exposed to cold. Should the condition become worse instead of better, a hypodermic injection of morphia should be given, and the patient restrained by assistants from doing violence to himself or his surroundings. On no account must a patient's action be controlled by tying him down to the bed, but he may be restrained by hand till the morphia has time to take effect. Extreme excitement during the recovery from an anaesthetic is generally only observed in alcoholic patients. Vomiting. If ether has been the anaesthetic employed, vomiting as a rule takes place early in the stage of recovery, often so early that the patient is not conscious of it, and does not remember it afterwards. The vomit consists chiefly of saliva that has been swallowed during the early stages of the administration, with the mucus that has been hanging about the pharynx, and may be mixed with a Httle bile-stained fluid from the stomach. If the patient has been well prepared for the operation, no sign of food will be noticed in the vomited matter. After this removal of saliva and mucus the patient will as a rule breathe more freely, will become of a better colour, and will often have no further trouble from the ether save a little headache, and a more or less distinct sensation of the smell and taste of ether. With chloroform for the anaesthetic vomiting occurs in fewer cases, but when it does, it is later in the stage of recovery, often when the patient is quite conscious. It is then very annoying, and will be distinctly remembered by the patient. When vomiting occurs after chloroform it is sometimes very severe, being both very frequent, and accompanied by severe straining, and in some patients by a marked tendency to syncope. Treatment.—For the slight cases no treatment beyond abstinence from all food for three or four hours is necessary.