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.
599/664 page 579
![what has been denominated by Dr. H. C. Wood ... as crossed action ; the two drugs touching and reinforcing one another in their influence upon the respiratory functions, and spreading wide apart from each other in their unwished for and deleterious actions.' 1 Strychnine seems to have been the drug most in favour among anaesthetists in England during the eighteen-nineties, and indeed it was used by some as a routine prophylactic measure. Silk, for instance, stated in 1898 that ' for some time past [he] . . . had been in the habit of giving strychnine in all cases in which he contemplated a severe operation,—injecting a small quantity (gr. 1/20) immediately after the introduction of the anaesthesia . . . and repeating the dose once or twice if necessary '. Silk also stated that * the general idea seemed to be, now-a-days, that the dose of strychnine given to counteract the ill effects of chloroform should be much larger than it had been the custom to give. . . . Recently as much as half a grain of strychnia had been given in a case of chloroform poison- ing . . .'.2 In the course of a discussion held by the Society of Anaes- thetists in January 1898 on resuscitation in emergencies under anaesthetics, E. A. Schafer suggested the use of two drugs s which might be effectual '■—-nicotine and extract of suprarenal gland.3 Both drugs, but particularly suprarenal extract, used intraven- ously ' produced an enormous contraction in the arterioles ' and suprarenal extract ' also had an extraordinary effect upon the heart, causing an enormously increased rate and force of beat '. Schafer suggested that, in the case of suprarenal extract, ' it might be perfectly possible to inject it with complete safety in extreme cases directly into the heart by means of a hypodermic syringe '.4 In 1893 Hewitt, in his book Anaesthetics and their administration (p. 324), directed the attention of anaesthetists to the intravenous injection of saline solutions. This method of raising the blood pressure was already well-known to the physician and surgeon in connection with the treatment of the exhausted or the shocked patient. It was, however, little used by the anaesthetist until 1 J. Physiol., 1892, 13, 892-6. 2 Trans. Soc. Anaesth., 1898, I, 57-8. 3 The physiological effects of extracts of the suprarenal capsules were investigated by E. A. Schafer and G. Oliver in 1895. {J. Physiol., 1895, 18, 230-79). 4 Trans. Soc. Anaesth., 1898, 1, 54-5.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20457200_0607.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
