Dr. Charles T. Jackson's statement of the history of his discovery of the means of preventing all sensations of pain in surgical operations by administration of vapor of pure sulphuric ether mixed with air, by pulmonary inhalation.

  • Jackson, Charles T. (Charles Thomas), 1805-1880.
Date:
[1851?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Charles T. Jackson's statement of the history of his discovery of the means of preventing all sensations of pain in surgical operations by administration of vapor of pure sulphuric ether mixed with air, by pulmonary inhalation. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    j [Dr. Charles T. Jackson's Statement of the History of his discovery of the means of preventing all sensations of pain in Surgical operations, by administration of Vapor of pure Sulphuric Ether mixed ivith air, by pulmonary inhalation.] Boston, December 18, 1851. Hon. Wm. H. Bissell, Chairman of a Select Committee on the Ether discovery, Sfc,— Sir : I have the honor of laying before you a brief account of \ht ori- gin of the discovery of the anaesthetic effects of pure sulphuric ether vapor mixed with air. This paper is the original rough copy of the memorial I have sent to his Excellency Baron Alex. Von Humboldt, of Berlin, to lay before the Royal Academy of Berlin, and was prepared by request of the Hon. Secretary of State of the United States for Baron Hum- boldt's use, and was transmitted by me to the Department of State. I trust you will find in it and in the evidence I shall have the honor to send to you, to lay before your committee, ample proofs, that the dis- covery of etherization arose with me, and was introduced into surgical practice under my directions. Any points not perfectly clear to you, I shall be happy to write to you about, and give you any and all the information I possess concerning this discovery. I regret that the very short notice you gave me of your having the subject of this discovery before your committee, will not allow me to make a transcript of the original paper, and therefore I beg you will allow me to present it in my own hand-writing, which is not quite so good as that of an expert penman, but I trust will be found clear and legible enough for the printers to set up, in case the documents are printed for information of Congress. While I was a student in medicine, in 1825, '26, '27 and '28, 1 was engaged in chemical and physiological researches connected with my professional studies, and had read with deep interest the curious re- searches of the late Sir H. Davy, on the physiological effects of va- rious gases, when inhaled into the lungs, and I repeated all those lhat were not considered imminently dangerous, for the purpose of realizing their effects on the system. Among the other gases I inhaled very frequently, and administered to others, the protoxide of nitrogen, (exhilarating gas,) and was thus made perfectly familiar with its physiological effects. Subsequently I thought much of Davy's suggestion, that protoxide of nitrogen might possibly be employed in mitigating the pain of a-surgical operation, and on my return from Europe, where J had been to improve myself in the sciences of medicine and surgery, I determined to try the effects of that gas in every possible way, and I did, in 1837, think that-1 fiad produced the state of insensibility required, by administering to several young men the protoxide of nitrogen, through a very small aperture, closing the nostrils at the time, so as to exclude air from the lungs, but I found that I only had produced a partial and a dangerous state of asphyxia, and that the patients had not lost sensation, as was proved by pulling their hair, and by touching them. I came to the conclusion, therefore, that anaesthesia, or insensibility to pain, can not be produced by the in- halation of that gas, as proposeck by Sir H. Davy, and therefore aban- doned that method. 10