On the invention of local anæsthesia by refrigeration / letter from Dr. James Arnott.

  • Arnott, James, 1794-1885.
Date:
[©1867?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the invention of local anæsthesia by refrigeration / letter from Dr. James Arnott. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    that the application of the cold produced by the rapid solution of ice and various salts is a difficult process. Nothing can be more easy than to dip a bit of ice into common salt and press it gently on the skin, and yet this is sufficient to freeze it in less than the quarter of a minute. In some cases, indeed, a fi'igorific mistui'e cannot be properly applied without a cup or vessel of peculiar shape to contain it, which unquestionably involves more trouble than the projection of ether; but in several situations the part cannot be congealed by ether, and it is necessary to use either a freezing mixture, or a metallic ball or oval which has been cooled to the requisite degree by immersion in it. When deep, extensive and long-continued congelation is required, or when it has to be used when inflammation is present either in operations or in the treatment of disease, congelation by a freezing mixture, which can be combined with pressure and applied to any extent of surface, is the only measure which will fulfil the purpose. Simplicity and facility of application are doubtless valuable properties, but efficiency must not be sacrificed to ease. Questions of minor importance in this enquiry are—When and by whom was anjesthesia by evaporating ether first practised ? It was first practised in Paris in 1854, and about six years after the invention of local anesthesia by cold. M. Richet dropped the ether on the part, and quickened its evaporation by a bellows. Soon afterwards, M. Guerard projected the ether on the part from a syringe of peculiar construction. Then followed the invention of the pulverization of fluids, or their conversion into spray, by Dr. Sales-Girons, the principle of which was, as a matter of course, soon adapted to the construction of instruments for ansesthesia by those who had been employing ether in preference to freezing mixtures. At a discussion on the subject in the Surgical Society of Paris (reported in the Gazette des Hdpitaux of March 24 last), it was mentioned by M. Desormeaux that he had employed such an instrument years before, and by M. Velpeau that his pupils at the H6pital de la Charity had used the more simple expedient of the perfumer's spray- producing tube. Dr. Eichardson's instrument is constructed on the same principle, and has been followed by other instramenta in France and elsewhere. But the method of producing anaesthesia by freezing mixtures, which M. Velpeau calls in the discussion referred to un moyen d' a/nesthesie locale Ms simple el tris efficace, has generally been preferred by French Surgeons. In concluding this letter, 1 cannot but express the regret I feel at being compelled either to publish the above statement or to sufier myself not only to be deprived of the credit of an invention which I have so longendeavoured to bring to perfection, but to incur the risk of being charged with making pretensions to a discovery which belongs to another. The public, addressed in the manner they have been through the newspapers, and with no other knowledge of the subject, will not distinguish between the principle of an invention and the means of carrying it into effect; but though I have not the opportunity of explaining the difference through the same channel, I place the task of doing so