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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    sent anxieties and suffering. And I cannot see why, if you do this (and who would not do if?) to reheve a patient from the mere effects of fatigue, you could refuse to relieve the same lady when in the pangs and agonies of travail,'.' from the endurance of pains which are, in your own words, abso- lutely indescribable and comparable to no other pains. Perhaps (you observe) I am cruel in taking so dispassionate a view of the subject. Of course, it would ill become me to pass any such judgment upon you; but I feel this, that you and I; and other teachers of midwifery, are placed, in reference to this question, in a position far more fearfully responsible than ordinary medical practitioners. The ordinary obstetric prac- titioner has little or no power, except over the relief or the perpetuation, (according as he may choose it,) of the sufferings of his own immediate patients. But you and I, as obstetrical teachers, may, through our pupils, have the power of relieving or of continuing the sufferings of whole communities. If, per- chance, you persist for some years longer in your present opinion, it will have the effect of inflicting a large amount of what I conscientiously believe and know to be altogether un- necessary agony and suffering upon thousands of our fellow- beings. If you review and alter your opinions, (which I earnestly hope you will do,) and make yourself sufficiently acquainted with the peculiarities in the mode of action and mode of exhibition of chloroform during labour, a vast propor- tion of human suffering may, even within the next few years, be saved by your happy instrumentality and influence. Feeling as I do deeply the great responsibility in this respect of your situation and of mine, I trust you will kindly pardon and excuse me, if anywhere in the preceding pages I may have appeared to defend my views with too much earnestness. If I had to rewrite or revise the observations, I would perhaps have stated them more accurately, but I must send them as they are; and along with them I beg to send also the most sincere esteem and reiterated respects of, My dear sir, Yours, very faithfully, J. Y. Simpson. To Dr. Meip^B, Professor of Midwifery, Philadelphia. THE END. \\^-