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.
567/664 page 547
![F. L. Dumont, of Berne, in his Handbuch der allgemeinen und lokalen Anaesthesie, wrote : ' Nothing is more ridiculous than the diffidence with which he [the administrator of an anaesthetic] accepts a subordinate role in the operation. He is just as important a personage as the operating surgeon, for the patient's life depends upon him just as much as it does upon the latter. In our opinion the great short- coming of most medical teaching on the European Continent is that (unlike English and American teaching f1]), it makes no provision for instruction in anaesthetics. This latter subject is surely at least as important as, for example, bandaging, which is almost everywhere compulsory. It ought not to be forgotten that the achievement of smooth, perfect, and safe anaesthesia is a skilled art, which must be properly learned. How often have we failed to find this art in young colleagues, who come as house surgeons, fresh from the classroom, with top marks in surgery, yet who are not a little embarrassed if they have to undertake the administration of an anaesthetic' 2 The Status of the Anaesthetist in England at the Close of the Nineteenth Century Although in England the anaesthetist had a recognized status in the medical profession which, during the eighteen- nineties, had come to be the envy of medical men of other nations, his position so far as the law was concerned was ill- defined. Since about 1885 anaesthetists had been perplexed by questions of etiquette in anaesthetic practice, particularly in cases where some legal difficulty was, or might be, involved. The middle years of the eighteen-eighties form a sort of silly season in the history of anaesthesia in England (cf. p. 457 et seq.) ; creative effort was temporarily almost at a standstill and the journals, particularly the British Medical Journal, were full of questions and answers bearing upon correct procedure in various hypothetical cases having a legal or quasi-legal interest. For example, to the inquiry : is it legal for an anaesthetist to charge a fee of one guinea in a case of amputation of a pauper's leg ? the British Medical Journal replied : ' We advise that our correspondent should apply for the same [to the Local Government Board]. . . . It should be remembered 1 This passage was published in 1903 after reform in anaesthetic education had begun in the United States. 2 Dumont, F. L. 1903. Handbuch der allegemeinen und lokalen Anaesthesie. Berlin and Vienna 17.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20457200_0575.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
