On local anaesthesia by ether spray, as a means for the entire extinction of pain in operations on the inferior animals / by Benjamin W. Richardson.

  • Richardson, Benjamin Ward, 1828-1896.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On local anaesthesia by ether spray, as a means for the entire extinction of pain in operations on the inferior animals / by Benjamin W. Richardson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    operation even when painless, unless the mind is also shut out from the procedure : there are one or two great operations such as amputation of the thigh, or at the hip joint where the general anaesthesia may on the whole be yet preferable, apart from moral or physical considerations.* But in relation to the inferior animals neither of these objections prevail; no physical difficulty has to be overcome, and no such operation as au amputation of a limb has to be performed. In so far therefore as the application of the local process is concerned, the veterinary surgeon has in it everything he could desire; and when the three facts are added that the local process is absolutely safe in respect to life, that the time required for perfecting it is a few seconds, and that the expense for all the ordinary operations need not exceed sixpence, I think I may say that in veterinary surgery, the painless art is complete. THE PROCESS AND APPARATUS. The process of local anaesthesia which I bring before you may have its advantages all summed up in two words, “ practical simplicity.” I claim for it only on my part, that it makes local auaesthesia ready at all times and seasons, rapid safe, and convenient. Previous to my researches, the fact that local insensibility could be produced, was well established, the best agency for the purpose being extreme cold. The phenomenon I am about to show, is anaesthesia from sudden and intense cold. [The use of extreme cold as a means of removing pain is old, both in principle and practice. Dr. Benjamin Franklin suggested the application of fluids which would quickly evaporate, and so produce cold, for removing the pain of burns and inflammations. Dr. Sutton in 1812 practised with cold for the cure of inflammation, and Dr. N. Chapman, an American physician suggested in 1821 the removal of cancer by frozen metallic plates. But it was reserved for one of the most original and advanced thinkers in this or any previous age of medicine, Dr. James Arnott, in the year 1848, to point out and to prove how extreme cold could render portions of the body so benumbed, that severe surgical operations might be performed under the influence of cold, without pain and without danger.] * In naming these exceptional operations for tlxe employment of choloroform, I do not mean to convey the idea that they could not be performed under the local method. It would be very easy to produce locally all the insensibility required ; but owing to the hemorrhage attendant on the operations, great rapidity on the part of the surgeon is demanded : this rapidity would be some- what interfered with by the local process.