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.
433/664 page 413
![Kappeler had expressed the opinion that the Americans were over-partial to ether and exaggerated the dangers of chloroform ; furthermore he stated his opinion that ' the use of ether is not without danger, as its partisans would have us believe '-1 In order to be able to draw its own conclusions as to the relative dangers of the two anaesthetics the German Surgical Society, in 1890, appointed Gurlt, of Berlin, to compile inde- pendent statistics relating to death or threatened death during anaesthesia. His first report to the Society was made a year later. Gurlt stated that most of his data was of German origin, but records of a few cases came from abroad—three each from Austria and Russia, for example, two from Sweden, and one apiece from Holland and Belgium. ' In 22,656 chloroform anaesthesias 71 cases had been com- plicated by asphyxial symptoms and 6 cases had proved fatal ; in 470 ether anaesthesias there were no asphyxial complications and no deaths; in 1055 chloroform-ether anaesthesias, 5 cases had asphyxial complications but there were no deaths; in 417 ether - chloroform - alcohol anaesthesias, 4 cases had asphyxial complications ; in 27 ethyl bromide anaesthesias, no asphyxial complications and no deaths. This gives a total of 24,625 anaes- thesias, 80 with asphyxial complications and 6 fatalities. Of these 6 chloroform anaesthesia had to its account one death in every 3776 cases and one case of asphyxial difficulty in about every 319 cases ; the figure for chloroform-ether anaesthesia is much smaller and the figure for ether-chloroform-alcohol anaesthesia is smaller still.' Gurlt stated that only 470 cases of ether anaesthesia had come to hand ' and of these 304 came from Herr Stelzner of Dresden [cf. p. 410 footnote]. . . . The mixed chloroform-ether-alcohol anaesthesias (417 cases) came from Billroth and von Hacker [Billroth, in Vienna, used a mixture of three parts chloroform and one each of alcohol and ether]. On the question of morphine injection com- bined with inhalation anaesthesia there is a great deal of informa- tion ; some reporters stated that they made use of it in almost every case, others in a very large proportion of cases, still others, it seems, scarcely at all. 14 reporters with a total of 6806 cases between them, state that they used an injection of morphine in 2194 cases.' 2 1 Sem. med., Paris, 1890, 10, 129. 2 Dtsch. med. Wschr., 1891, 17, 599.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20457200_0437.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
