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.
353/664 page 333
![Adams, ' the apparatus is always at hand and not in the way.' 1 The reply to the questionnaire which came from the Charing Cross Hospital, was made by Woodhouse Braine, ' chloroformist ' to that hospital and to the Dental Hospital : ' i. Nitrous oxide is given to render the patient insensible and the anaesthesia is kept up by means of ether.' (Clover's combined gas-ether apparatus was not used. Nitrous oxide was first administered from an ordinary type of apparatus and ether was then given from a felt cone.) The ' chloroformist ' to St. Mary's Hospital stated that ' chloroform has been almost exclusively given here during the last five years ', by Clover's apparatus (see Figs. 53 and 54), ' and the ether ', given from a felt cone containing sponge, ' has only been adopted as an experiment, in deference to its reputa- tion for safety '. But Sydenham J. Knott, late anaesthetist to the hospital, wrote independently : ' I am now in the habit of using ether, nitrous oxide, or both combined. . . . And I never give chloroform except when requested to do so by the operator, and that is now very seldom '. G. E. Norton replied from the Middlesex Hospital : ' I am in the habit of administering chloroform, ether, and nitrous oxide gas. . . . Chloroform I prefer for children and elderly people . . . [and] in operations about the mouth . . . [and] eye operations. . . . Chloroform I administer on a small frame covered with flannel, with a piece of sponge inside, on which the chloroform is poured. . . . Ether I administer with one of Hawksley's inhalers. . . .' The Surgical Registrar at St. Thomas's Hospital made the orthodox statement that chloroform was given to children and old people, ether to adults for general surgery and nitrous oxide to dental patients. Where speed was especially important, in general surgery, a chloroform-ether sequence was used. He gave the impression, however, that despite new-fangled ideas, chloroform was still the anaesthetic of choice at St. Thomas's. ' Chloroform ', he wrote, ' is always administered by an in- strument known as Millikin's modification of Snow's inhaler. When employed in the wards, it is merely given on a fold of lint. The instrument used for administering ether is Golding](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20457200_0357.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
