The development of inhalation anaesthesia : with special reference to the years 1846-1900... / [Barbara M. Duncum].
- Duncum, Barbara M.
- Date:
- 1947
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The development of inhalation anaesthesia : with special reference to the years 1846-1900... / [Barbara M. Duncum]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
352/664 page 332
![after effects—headache, vomiting, etc.—which were observed to be especially severe and prolonged in the case of ether, it has again become the anaesthetic in common use. In the eye wards, however, the mixture , is still generally administered. . . .' The late resident medical officer of the London Hospital wrote : ' i. The anaesthetic chiefly employed ... is ether ; it was introduced . . . in the early [sic] part of the year 1872. . . . Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson prefers the use of chloroform in old people with rigid or brittle arteries, as he considers the arterial tension produced by ether a condition very likely to give rise to cerebral haemorrhage. . . . Chloroform is more used in the maternity department than any other of this hospital ; but, in obstetric operations, ether has been chiefly given. ... In the dental department . . . nitrous oxide gas [is used]. . . . Bichloride of methylene was used for a short time in our ophthalmic depart- ment, but was abandoned in consequence of its acquiring a bad reputation in other hospitals. [Chloroform was preferred to ether in this department because it was thought to produce less congestion of the eyeball and orbit .] 2. It has been the invariable rule at the London Hospital to have as little apparatus in the administration of anaesthetics as possible. . . . Ether is administered in cones, made with new stiff towels, with sponges in them. Chloroform is always given with a simple Skinner's inhaler [see Fig. 56]. . . . Several leathern inhalers have been tried with ether, but the towel, in form of a cone, seems still most popular. 3. A great revolution in the administration of anaes- thetics took place in this hospital in 1872 ; at that time, ether became almost universally substituted for chloroform. Since the introduction of ether, the hospital has not contained any case in which death has resulted from its use nor during its administration. . . .'1 Despite the alleged dislike of the London Hospital authorities for apparatus, during 1876 J. E. Adams succeeded in installing in the operating theatre a non-portable apparatus for ether administration. It consisted of a large water-bath screwed to the wall, the water being kept at a temperature of ioo° F. ' so as to secure the boiling of the ether ', and fixed to it with a clamp, the ether-bottle of Hawksley's inhaler (see p. 321). A length of tubing, carried above the heads of the assistants and sufficient ' to extend over the whole area of the theatre', joined the vaporizer to a facepiece. ' By having this arrangement,' wrote](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20457200_0356.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
