Anaesthesia, hospitalism, hermaphroditism, and a proposal to stamp out small-pox and other contagious diseases / Ed. by Sir W.G. Simpson, bart.

  • Simpson, James Young, 1811-1870.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Anaesthesia, hospitalism, hermaphroditism, and a proposal to stamp out small-pox and other contagious diseases / Ed. by Sir W.G. Simpson, bart. 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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    PAET L HISTORY OF ANESTHESIA. CHAPTEE I. ANCIENT HISTORY OF ANESTHESIA. The idea of saving by some artificial means the human body from the pains and tortures inflicted by the knife of the surgeon is by no means a thought first broached or first acted upon in recent times. For the production of anaesthesia a variety of measures had been suggested and employed long before the introduction of sulphuric ether and chloroform. We may consider these means under several heads, according as the insensibility to pain was to be effected either— 1. By the inhalation of gases or vapours. 2. By mechanical means. 3. By the internal administration of drugs. 1. Ancesthesia by the inhalation of vapours or gases.—Under this head I may mention the following suggestions:—In 1795 Dr. Pearson proposed the inhalation of sulphuric ether (and he appears to have been the first to do so), but apparently only for the purpose of relieving the cough in asthma, etc., and not for producing general anaesthesia. In 1816 Nysten introduced a special apparatus for its inhalation. In 1800 Sir H. Davy recommended the employment of nitrous oxide gas for the relief of pain in the extraction of teeth and other minor surgical operations, and he also described the effects it had on himself when he inhaled it to relieve local pain. Thus, he says:— The power of the immediate operation of the gas in re- moving intense physical pain, I had a very good opportunity of ascertaining. In cutting one of the unlucky teeth called dentes sapientise, I experienced an extensive inflammation of the gum, accompanied with great pain, which equally destroyed the power of VOL. II. B ;