On the pathological and physiological effects of ethereal inhalation : with an appendix containing an additional case and experiments.

  • Brown, Buckminster, 1819-1891.
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the pathological and physiological effects of ethereal inhalation : with an appendix containing an additional case and experiments. 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.

    19/24 (page 15)
    has been done in Paris, day after day, the same experiments, merely that a new student or a new class of students should. have an opportunity of visually demonstrating those facts which he may find clearly stated in his text books. Now, however, many of those inquiries which have an aim of real utility in view, may be pursued without the infliction, during the operation at least, of the slightest degree of pain. And the subject is also removed from that great amount of uncertainty, which must always veil, in some degree of doubt, those results which have been obtained after the shock which the pain of a severe operation necessarily gives to the system. This shock has been, undoubtedly, in numerous instances, so great as to defeat the whole end of the experimenter, or else lead him into serious and fatal error. The question, then, merges itself in this : shall animals, such as cats or valueless dogs, which are every day put out of existence in almost in- numerable quantities, be of service, and even of important service, in their deaths ? Shall all that beautiful and complicated machinery be allowed to decay at the bottom of some ditch, or shall it, without pain, or even the infliction of a greater degree of discomfort than occurs in drowning, serve for the advancement and the well being of humanity ? All will answer in the affirmative ; and this will be, we hope, one of the means by which science will make strides even more rapid than those which have characterized its progress during the last half century. My first experiment was upon a cat. She was fully etherized in about eight minutes. Previous to this state of complete torpor, on withdrawing the sponge there were the same irregular staggering movements which we have heretofore observed, denoting an affection of the cerebellum ; and a commencing enlargement of the pupil, which was afterwards dilat- ed to the full extent of which it was capable. She then lay with no sign of life, excepting an irregular motion of the diaphragm. The animal was in this state twenty minutes, during which time I did two operations, with a view to determining whether the degree of muscular relaxation was such as seriously to interfere with the performance of tenotomy, and thus prevent a full application of ether in cases in which this operation is to be performed. In those cases of contraction where we have previously made use of ether during the division of tendons, it has never been per- mitted to produce its full effect, but merely carried to such an extent as to blunt the sensibility and tranquillize the nerves. And this is all that need be done in a majority of cases, in which a short operation only is