Surgical experience of chloroform / By James Miller.

  • James Miller
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Surgical experience of chloroform / By James Miller. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    more rapidly the operation was performed. With chloroform, however, all is changed; and in this, as in all other opera¬ tions, the surgeon is left at liberty to be as deliberate and pains¬ taking in every movement of the knife as if he were dealing with textures truly inanimate. From such deliberation in procedure, there results, as already stated, no increase of shock or other evil; all is pure benefit—an operation con¬ ducted in all its parts with certainty and precision, and there¬ fore more promising of a successful issue. XIV. ANESTHESIA DOES NOT FAVOUR HEMORRHAGE. The converse has been an objection urged. In my expe¬ rience and belief it does not hold good. Take amputation, for example. 1. Anaesthesia does not favour flow of blood dur¬ ing the incisions—-jon the contrary. The tourniquet, or com¬ pressing finger of an assistant, is not liable, as before, to be jerked off the vessel; for the patient is lying in thorough stupor, with lith and limb supple as a willow and motionless as a log. The absence of alarm and excitement in the pa¬ tient, saves quickening of the general circulation. The ab¬ sence of writhing and contortion, in the limb, saves from local acceleration of the blood’s flow, more especially from the ve¬ nous trunks.* 2. Neither does anaesthesia favour bleeding during deligation of vessels on the stump’s face. On the contrary, the quiet state of the stump favours quick despatch in securing these ; and the orifices untied, abiding their turn, will exude all the more sparingly on account of the quiet state of the general system. 3. Nor does anaesthesia favour haemorrhage after the stump has been arranged, and the pa¬ tient replaced in bed. For, in the first place, such ample * In bloodletting, at the bend of the arm, if the limb be kept steady and motionless, the blood may flow slowly, if at all; and to accelerate its escape, the muscles of the forearm are put into constant motion. The former condition— quiet, with feeble flow—corresponds with ansesthesia ; the latter—muscular movement, with full bleeding—corresponds with the active and unsteady limb of an unansesthetized patient.