Notes on anaesthetics : with an appendix containing illustrative cases and engravings of anaesthetic apparatus / by Arthur S. Underwood.

  • Underwood, Arthur Swayne, 1854-1916.
Date:
1885
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on anaesthetics : with an appendix containing illustrative cases and engravings of anaesthetic apparatus / by Arthur S. Underwood. 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.

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    dentist, observed this property of nitrons oxide, and, moreover-, reduced it to practice by administering it in his own surgery; but the results in those early days, with an imperfect apparatus, were not alto- gether satisfactory. No doubt the discouragement which the world is always ready to shower upon all who advance new ideas, or try to improve upon old ones, was liberally bestowed upon Dr. Wells. At any rate he died a disappointed man, leaving the discovery in its infancy. Then Dr. Morton, a former partner of Dr. Wells, but who had, strangely enough, received no hint or sug- gestion from him, instituted a series of experiments quite independently of his old associate, principally upon the lower animals, which resulted in the dis- covery of sulphuric ether. Much discomfort being experienced from the pungency of this agent, chloric ether was employed instead; and from this Mr. Waldie, of the Apothecaries Hall, Liverpool, separated chloroform, which was first administered by the late Sir James T. Simpson, in the autumn of 1847. For a time, nitrous oxide, which had had the honour of being first in the field, was eclipsed and almost forgotten. Meanwhile, the tide of fashion fluctuated between the other two anaesthetics. First chloroform superseded ether, because it was more agreeable, then a few fatal cases frightened the public, and a rush was made in the opposite direction. Ether was pronounced less dangerous, because it did not depress the heart’s action, but even stimulated it. This continued until 1861, when Mr. Lister (now