The physiological method of inducing respiration in cases of drowning, stillbirth, suffocation from chloroform, etc. etc / by Henry R. Silvester.

  • Silvester, Henry R. (Henry Robert), 1828-1908.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The physiological method of inducing respiration in cases of drowning, stillbirth, suffocation from chloroform, etc. etc / by Henry R. Silvester. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    view; but the want of precision in making them is very striking. He (Dr. Sharpey) could not attach any impor¬ tance to the results of experiments so conducted. Dr. Silvester had repeated them in a more precise way, and could not get a displacement of more than one cubic inch of air. It would be asked, however, what answer should be made to the many statements of the success of the Ready Method. He would reply, that many of them were in cases of still-born infants, a part of whom, he believed, would recover without any assistance if left alone to them¬ selves, or, at least, by very simple means. Then again, as Dr. Silvester states, there is no air in the lungs of infants. In reference to adults, he (Dr. Sharpey) believed himself right in saying that in many of the cases of recovery after submersion, respiration commenced sponta¬ neously as soon as the patient reached the air. If in such cases Dr. Marshall Hall’s method is begun at once, it would be unfair to give the credit solely to it. May it not even be, as suggested by Sir B. Brodie, that recovery often follows, not from the means used, but in spite of them ? Sir B. Brodie, Bart, F.R.S., on the Marshall Hall Method. The restoration of persons apparently drowned has been attracting so much attention since Dr. Christian’s able paper was read before the Medico-Chirurgical Society, that the two following letters from Sir Benjamin Brodie will be read with interest:— “ 14, Savile Row, “ February 13, 1860. “ Dear Sir, “ I cannot say that I have ever entertained any favourable opinion of what the late Dr. Marshall Hall called his 1 Ready Method of restoring animation.’ It seems more than probable that the repeated compression of the chest, for the purpose of expelling all the air from the lungs, would have an injurious effect on the action of the heart. The air drawn into the lungs by the elasticity