The surgery of oral diseases and malformations : their diagnosis and treatment / by George Van Ingen Brown.

  • Brown, George van Ingen, 1861-1948.
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The surgery of oral diseases and malformations : their diagnosis and treatment / by George Van Ingen Brown. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    31/792 (page 27)
    “The preliminary injection is given to all patients from eight years up. If an elderly patient is strong enough to undergo an operation, he is strong enough to have the beneficial effects of the combination, and it has not been withheld on account of age. Children are more apt to be nervous and ap])rehensive than adults; therefore the preliminary is given to all children of eight years and older. . “ About thirty minutes after the hypodermic the patient becomes drowsy, and all apprehension and fear regarding the operation arc gone. The transition from a partial sleep to complete anesthesia is not sudden, as from complete wakefulness, and is easily accom- plished. After the operation he usually sleeps from three to five hours, and may partially awake and go to sleep again several times before becoming completely awake. The sleep saves him from the smarting pain of the recently incised tissues. There is much less postoperative vomiting, most patients having practi- cally none. The secretion of mucus is markedly checked and in most cases is completely stopped. This prevents aspiration.”^ John B. iMurphy presents the following conclusions after careful review of the literature of 1911 upon the subject of anesthesia “ From these able and honest presentations we cannot hesitate from coming to the conclusion that all of the methods of spinal analgesia are attended by greater danger than general anesthesia by ether; that local anesthesia has a definite and valuable place; the scopolamine method may be permissible in the hands of a few and gives a fairly satisfactory' anesthesia. But ether by the flrop method is the safest and gives the most satisfactory anesthesia. Relaxation of the muscles takes place more rapidly if the patient has received an injection of J gr. of morphine with an equivalent of atropine. That atropine, with or without morphine, should be given one-half hour before anesthesia to prevent secretion of mucus in the respiratory tract during the anesthesia. “The fatalities from chloroform are diminished in direct relation to the infrequency of its u.se. It is rarely, if ever, indicated by any advantages over ether. “Nitrous oxide maybe used as a preliminary to etherwith advan- ' Jour. Amer. Med. Assoc., March 20, 1910. •Practical Medicine .Series, 1911, ii. .33.