Sulphuric ether and chloroform as anæsthetics, considered with reference to their relative safety and efficiency / by Frederick D. Lente.

  • Lente, Frederick D. (Frederick Divoux), 1823-1883
Date:
1861
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sulphuric ether and chloroform as anæsthetics, considered with reference to their relative safety and efficiency / by Frederick D. Lente. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to two other cases (pp. 268-269). In one, the operation was an amputa- tion of the thigh for compound fracture of the thigh with extensive lacera- tion, and a simple fracture of the other thigh. The etherization was not perfect during the most painful steps of the operation, and its shock thus undiminished; as might have been anticipated from the nature of the injury, the patient died, but not until three hours after the amputation. In the second case, a cancerous tumour, weighing three and a quarter pounds, was removed from the breast of a feeble old man; and here also the fatal result occurred only after the lapse of seven hours. Dr. Kidd’s language is too vague to admit of any confidence in his reports regarding so important a matter as the one under discussion. He speaks of deaths from ether, and from a mixture of ether and chloroform, and from amylene, in such a con- fused manner that one is completely in the dark as to how many are to be attributed to each of these agents individually, even if it be admitted that they were due to the anaesthetic, and not to the accident or operation. But if any one wishes to get a clear idea of how utterly unreliable Dr. Kidd’s writings are, he would do well to peruse the review of his “little work on chloroform” in the London Med. Times and Gazette, or the Edinburgh, or the Dublin Medical Journal for 1858. Whether the death in any given case is to be attributed to the anaesthetic, or the shock, or hemorrhage, or other accident connected with the operation itself, is often a matter of opinion or judgment, and sometimes, perhaps, even of prejudice; as in some of the cases above alluded to. Therefore, each case, to be accepted as authentic, should be carefully given in detail, and, if possible, accompanied with the autopsy. For instance, in two cases of alleged death from sul- phuric ether recorded in Dr. Snow’s work (pp. 362-64), the author repu- diates the idea of the death being due to the anaesthetic; whereas, both cases certainly admit of doubt, and most readers would find the ether guilty in one instance.^ Let us now inquire how many authentic cases of death from sulphuric ether are to be found on record. Happily they are few indeed. The only European case worthy of credit, and this repudiated, as we have seen by the highest authority, is that which happeiied at the Hotel Dieu d’Auxerre. At the autopsy, the spleen was found disorganized ; but the general condi- tion of the patient was good previous to the operation, which was for cancer. The case which happened under M. Barrier’s hands at Lyons, I think, we may fairly attribute, with Dr. Snow, to the hemorrhage and shock of the operation. With regard to American cases, I will first notice that which happened at Bellevue Hospital in the city of New York; which will be found well reported in the New 'York Journal of Medicine ' Dr. G. Hayward, of Boston, who is excellent authority in this matter, agrees with Dr. Snow, that no well attested case of death from sulphuric ether is recorded. (British and For. Med.-Chirurg. Rev. for 1859.)