On chloroform and other anæsthetics: their action and administration

On chloroform and other anæsthetics: their action and administration

The most important discovery that has been made in the practice of medicine since the introduction of vaccination, is, undoubtedly, the power of making persons perfectly insensible to the most painful surgical operations, by the inhalation of the vapours of ether, chloroform, and other agents of the same kind. In giving a brief outline of this discovery, it is necessary to inquire into the attempts of every kind which had previously been made to prevent severe pain; and also to notice the history of medicinal inhalations, whether undertaken with the view of preventing pain, or of relieving or curing disease. The practice of taking opium and other vegetable narcotics, to relieve pain or procure sleep, was common in the most remote periods to which history extends; but the earliest notices which remain of any attempts to prevent the pain of surgical operations were written at the period of the Roman Empire. They were alluded to by Dr. Simpson at the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh in November, 1847.[4] Dioscorides,[5] speaking of mandragora, says, Some persons boil the root in wine down to a third part, and preserve the decoction, of which they administer a cyathus (rather more than an ounce and a half) in want of sleep and severe pains of any part, and also before operations with the 2knife or the actual cautery, that they may not be felt. (Ante sectiones ustionesve, ut ne sentiantur.) Further on he says: A wine is prepared from the bark of the root without boiling, and three pounds of it are put into a cadus (about eighteen gallons) of sweet wine, and three cyathi of this are given to those who require to be cut or cauterized: when being thrown into a deep sleep they do not feel any pain. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 68315
Author: Snow, John
Release Date: Jun 14, 2022
Format: eBook
Language: English
Publisher: John Churchill
Publication Date: 1858
Publisher Country: United Kingdom

Contributors

Editor: Richardson, Benjamin Ward, 1828-1896