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.
604/664 page 584
![On the Continent of Europe, after about 1850, the only important stronghold of ether anaesthesia for some twenty-five years was Lyons. Throughout this period the surgeons there continued to use Roux's sac (see Fig. 24). This was a bag lined with a pig's bladder. A small quantity of ether was poured into the bottom and the mouth of the bag was held over the patient's nose and mouth and he breathed to and fro, with occasional intermissions, during anaesthesia (see pp. 146, 207, 424). When the use of ether anaesthesia was revived in England in 1872 the American ' cone ' method of administration at first prevailed ; but during 1873 the use of inhaling apparatuses gradually returned. J. T. Clover in 1873 introduced an inhaler in which the ether was warmed by leading back the patient's exhalations down a bent tube running through the interior of the vaporizing chamber (see pp. 323-5 ; Fig. 82). In his apparatus designed between 1874 and 1876 for giving a nitrous oxide-ether sequence Clover surrounded his ether reservoir with a jacket containing cold water (see pp. 325-8), but immediately before use the ether vessel was ' dipped into a basin of warm water, and rotated until the thermometer [mounted in its wall] stands at about 68 deg. '—or, ' if the patient have thin cheeks and large whiskers, the temperature may be 73 deg.' (see p. 326). The ether container of Clover's ' portable regulating ether inhaler' (1877) was also partly surrounded by a water-jacket (see pp. 342-4 ; Figs. 89 and 90). Clover stated of this container ' it does not need to be warmed before it is used '. Nevertheless Hewitt, who subsequently modified the inhaler, recommended that in very cold weather or in order to anaesthetize an alcoholic man the ether chamber should be briefly immersed in hot water immediately before induction was begun (see p. 346). When using Ormsby's inhaler (1877), which consisted of a bag, a facepiece, and a sponge held in a wire case, the anaesthetist usually squeezed the sponge out of warm water before pouring the ether upon it (see pp. 349-50 ; Fig. 95). Hewitt, however, had a small water vessel made which was inserted into the sponge itself to prevent it becoming too cold during administration (see p. 352 ; Fig. 97). In 1895 R. W. Carter, ' with the assistance of Mr. Krohne (of Krohne and Sesemann, the surgical instrument makers) 5](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20457200_0612.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
