Discovery of anesthesia by Dr. Horace wells; memorial services at the fiftieth anniversary.

Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Discovery of anesthesia by Dr. Horace wells; memorial services at the fiftieth anniversary. 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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    Great discoveries and great events do not burst fortli with Promethean suddenness or completeness, but are the result of long periods of incubation and growth, and oftentimes await many long years of ex- pectancy, hope, and even despair. Such was the case with the great fact of practical anesthesia. The ancient nations waited for it, hunted for it, but died without the sight. Modern nations continued the longing search, but they caught only a glimpse of the coming day to reward them, until the middle of the present century, when Horace Wells discov- ered, demonstrated, and proclaimed the great bless- ing, which stopped pain, robbed the knife of its ter- rors, and made glad the heart of every sympathizer with sufifering. Insensibility to surgical operations was occasion- ally induced many centuries ago. Homer mentions the anesthetic effect of nepenthe, and refers to the inhalation of a vapor of hemp. Dioscorides and Pliny record the use of mandragora. Apuleius, A.D. 125, said: If a man has to have a limb mutilated, sawn, or burnt, he may take an ounce of mandragora wine, and whilst he sleeps the member may be cut ofif without pain or sense. In the third century Hoatho, a Chinese, gave his patients a preparation of hemp which rendered them insensible to pain. Theodoric in the thirteenth century gave directions for preparing the spongia somnifera for inhalation before operations. Ether was known as early as the thirteenth cen- turv, and described by Cordus in the sixteenth cen-