Anæsthesia, or, The employment of chloroform and ether in surgery, midwifery, etc. / by J.Y. Simpson.

Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Anæsthesia, or, The employment of chloroform and ether in surgery, midwifery, etc. / by J.Y. Simpson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    minds anxious to promote new and probable inquiries should not be intimidated and deterred Irom their pursuit by such pre- judgments on the part of others, those who are, on the contraiy, anxious to suppress them, should not venture to base theii op- position upon mere impressions and mere opinions only. T.ho ultimate decision upon such investigations ever comes to be founded, not upon preconceived beliefs or hasty deductions, but upon the careful examination and evidence of a sullicient body of accurate and well-ascertained facts. During the last six months, etherization has been used to a considerable extent in British surgery; and at the present time, we are perhaps in a condition to turn and look back upon this past experience with it, in order to endeavour to form, from the existing facts and cases, a proper judgment upon its merits or demerits, and es- pecially in order, if possible, to obtain some satisfactory light upon that all-important question in relation to its employment, viz., whether its adoption increases or diminishes the usual mortalitv consequent upon surgical operations. It was with this view that the present communication was undertaken. But, in the first place, and before engaging with this more difficult part of the inquiry, let me briefly adduce the positive evidence which we possess of the effect of etherization in can- celling and abolishing the sufferings attendant upon surgical operations, and the best means of effecting this desirable object, the a priori objections to it, &c. only person here who lias tried it.”—(lb. p. 376.) As late as 1805, the popular opinion in London was much shaken with regard to the propriety and safety of vaccination. “The influence,” says Mr. Blair, “of false rumours and distorted facts operated so strongly in the district of Bloomsbury and St. Giles, as to pre- clude even a single person from applying for vaccination at that dispensary.”— {Pamphlet, p. vi.) Dr. Moseley boasts (p. 13 of his Treatise, second edition), that at that date, 1805, the middle and inferior classes in London had “ renounced the delusion,” and would not “expose their children to cow-pox.” Instances of more marked popular hostility against it were not wanting in the early history of cow- pox. Mr. Gooch states, that the first people he vaccinated in Hadlcigh, Suffolk, “ were absolutely pelted and drove into their houses if they appeared out.”— {Baron's Life, vol. i. p. 382.) In the town of St n, Kincardineshire, a surgeon was lately used in a similar manner, for venturing to etherize a patient for extraction of a tooth. But still etherization has made more progress in months than vaccination effected in years; and already within a few short months a knowledge of it has spread over almost the civilized world. Within these few days, I received a letter of consultation from a lady, asking some directions for the use of etherization at her approaching confinement, in October next. The letter was from the Far West, and dated “Mount Morris, Illinois, United States.”