The misapplication of anaesthesia in childbirth, exemplified by facts / by G.T. Gream.

  • Gream, G. T. (George Thompson), 1812?-1888
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The misapplication of anaesthesia in childbirth, exemplified by facts / by G.T. Gream. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    15/80 page 7
    like praises of the effect of chloroform in midwifery ; and I doubt very much whether the practitioners who wrote these answers had been able to gain experience in more than a case or two, and they all three resided in towns of no great importance. People who were not taken at once with the flaming account of the effects of these agents, thought more seriously about them in a religious point of view, and to meet these scruples, two pamphlets were published. I will not attempt, however, to remark farther concerning these publications, than to notice that they have both emanated from authors interested in the employment of etherization, and from the pens of physicians, not from those of clergymen or others writing with authority, and learned in points requiring so minute an in- vestigation. I have read the pamphlet of Dr. Simpson ; the other I have not seen. In the first there is much that I own I think ought not to have been written ; and as a whole, I am of opinion it does not contain one single argument to prove that tiiere is authority for allaying the pains of labour; but the paucity of its reasonings may be judged of when it is known that the removal of Adam's rib is called the first great surgical operation; and that as he was in a deep sleep at the time, so this is considered as an example of the use of anaesthesia, and esteemed an authority for employing antesthetic agents at the present time. But let it be granted that there is full authority for annulling the pains of labour,—let it be allowed that no objection is to be found to the entire prevention of the sufferings incidental to parturition; I will still maintain that not one expression can be found in Holy Scripture, permitting the induction of intoxication in order to allay these pains. Dr. Simpson confesses to have received a letter with regard to the use of anaesthesia in midwifery from an eminent London divine; and I am led to think there is more sound, more direct authority in the few words explaining the conscientious conviction of this clergyman, than is contained, or probably can be found, in the whole of either of the pamphlets emanating from the theolo- gical reasonings of the two physicians. He writes, The question with me is not the alleviation of pain, but the desh'uction of consciousness. I should hesitate greatly to take a step which destroys consciousness. Now, adds Dr. Simpson, certainly our consciousness is destroyed in natural sleep, as much as in the
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3