Anaesthesia, or the employment of chloroform and ether in surgery, midwifery, etc. / by J.Y. Simpson.

  • Simpson, James Young, 1811-1870.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Anaesthesia, or the employment of chloroform and ether in surgery, midwifery, etc. / by J.Y. Simpson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    from smnll-pox is less by twenty thousand a year than it was half a century ago. If a similar rate of reduction in the num- ber of deaths from small-pox holds good—as we have every reason to believe is the case—in tlie other kingdoms of Europe, then, out of the 220 millions of people that inhabit this quarter of the globe, 400,000 or 500,000 fewer die now of smali-pox, than, vvith a similar population, would have died from this malady fifty years ago. In other words, according to this rate of computation, there are now preserved from death by small- pox in England, during the currency of a single half century, a number of lives greater in amount than the whole existing pnpulatirm of Wales. There are preserved in Europe, during the same period, a number of lives greater in amount than the whole existing population of Great Britain. For this mighty triumph of medicine over one of the most loathed and dreaded forms of human disease and death, science stands indebted to the inestimable discovery of Dr. Jenner ;* and every medical man is ready to allow, at the present day, that his discovery is not less remarkable in consequence of its gigantic results and amazing success, than in consequence of the singular simplicity and safety of the means with which that success is obtained. For no one now dreams of ever expecting any deleterious or dangerous consequences to ensue from vac- cination ; and, indeed, the performance of it has been mainly or entirely conducted, in some districts, by non-professional individuals,—by the priest, as well as by the physician,—by the nurse, as well as by the surgeon. Yet at the time of Dr. Jenner's first public announcement of vaccination in 1798, and for many years subsequently, the proposal of substituting vaccine for variolous inoculation was encountered by various members of the profession, with incre- dulity and ridicule, and direct and determined opposition. The measure by which he taught medical science to save annually from death, thousands of human lives in England, and hundreds of thousands throughout Europe, was, on its first introduction, individuals in society who remain unvaccinated, see some excellent remarks by Dr. Start!, in ttie Edinhurf^h Medical and Surgical Journal, No. 161. • In answer to tliose who have affected to doubt entirely the utility of physic and physicians, medical science may proudly point to the results of vaccination. During the long European wars connected with and following the French Revo- lution, it has been calculated that five or six millions of human lives were lost. In Europe, vaccination has already preserved from death a greater number of human beings than were sacrificed during the course of these wars. The lancet of Jenner has saved far more human lives than the sword of Napoleon destroyed. On these devastating European wars England lavished millions of monev, and' freely bestowed honours, peerages, and heavy annual pensions upon the soldiers who were most successful infighting her battles and destroying their fellow.men • she grudgingly rewarded Jenner with twenty thousand pounds for saving twenty thousand of her subjects annually.