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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    vGrv important matter 5 namely^ non-displacement of the rela¬ tive position of the parts. Most certainly, however, unless the surgeon have a determination of effecting and maintaining the rec^uired depth of ansesthesia, he liad better let chloroform alone, whenever he has a large and deep vessel to tie, or a difficult tumour to dissect away ; for the muscular excitement, which invariably attends on imperfect ansesthesia, must inevit¬ ably tend to render such operations both tedious and unsafe, if not indeed absolutely impracticable. At the same time, let me again repeat, that the effecting and maintaining of the required depth of anaesthesia is always at the command of good chloro¬ form and experienced administration. XVIII. THE ADVANTAGES CONFERRED BY ANESTHESIA ON THE PATIENT ARE VERY OBVIOUS, AND SCARCELY RE¬ QUIRE EVEN ENUMERATION. Absence of alarm and excitement, and of shock, previous to the operation ; freedom from pain during it, and during the arrangement and dressing of the wound—which may be tedi¬ ous ; a greater readiness to undergo operation—rendering this, therefore, because early, all the more likely to prove success¬ ful ; the prospect, at all times, of a better recovery—all the cir¬ cumstances of the operation (absence of shock, sparing loss of blood, accuracy of incision, &c.) having been rendered con¬ ducive thereunto. Tumours were wont to grow for many years undisturbed, till at length, from bulk or pain, they com¬ pelled interference—at least to be thought of; stones lay and rolled in the bladder, inflicting years of sore agony, and attain¬ ing to a bulk, perhaps, wholly incompatible with safe extrac¬ tion ; aneurisms grew, and grew, till on the very verge of bursting, till all textures had been damaged and compro¬ mised, and till hope by operation had waxed faint and feeble; diseased joints hung useless on the limbs, gradually exhausting the frame by sure hectic, till probably, at length, there was but a slight chance of saving life at the cost of the limb’s sacrifice. And all this fatal procrastination, because the sufferer could not brook the thought of pain under the hnife. “ In disease, the sternest minds, and the most possessed, have looked death
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