Anæsthesia, hospitalism, hermaphroditism and a proposal to stamp out small-pox and other contagious diseases / by Sir James Y. Simpson, Bart. ; edited by Sir W.G. Simpson, Bart.

  • James Young Simpson
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Anæsthesia, hospitalism, hermaphroditism and a proposal to stamp out small-pox and other contagious diseases / by Sir James Y. Simpson, Bart. ; edited by Sir W.G. Simpson, Bart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    28/588 (page 12)
    HISTOliY OF ANESTHESIA. CHAPTER II. MODERN HISTORY OF ANESTHESIA.' Edinburgh, January 1870 -DEAR SiR-There has been sent to me from America a Chicago newspaper contaming a letter of yours which is alleged to have been published m a late number of the Boston MedicaLnd SurgZ Journal. In tins letter you speak of the bestowal upon me, some months ago by my fellow-townsmen, of the rank o/an hoLrary burgess of Edinburgh; and you comment, in terms of bitterness^ upon the subject, and upon what I said-or rather upon what I did not say-on that occasion. I feel assured that if you or any one else had felt as nervous and timid as I did on rising to address the 1 Letter to Dr. Jacob Bigelow, Boston, in answer to the following-Dr B gelow says- Bnt many persons will think it a mistake in the adoptL of a foreigia discovery to ignore the source whence he derived it. Sir JameXnpson TJelZf r^T'r'j- '^^'^ complacently accepts th7cown fTor! rowed plumes thus tendered to him, makes not the sli4test aUusion to fL country from which they were plucked, in which conntVan:le?;i:L at^^^^^ w th more agents than one, was established, vindicated, and successfully prlc'- tised long before it w.^ heard of in Edinburgh or any other part of Europe. should .^^r T, °^ Providence, medicina agents should exist capable of averting pain by the suspension of sensibility; bu^ the wonder is that, after mankind had borne pain ever since the creatl; of thei r;,tT'? ? t °^ ^^'-^^ ^^^ strength of conviction to put through the untried and formidable experiments necessary to decide whether life could continue under the inhalation of a scarcely respii-able vapour, carried to such an extent as to destroy sensibiHty and produce apparent death That man was not Sir James Y. Simpson. The histoiy of anaesthetic inhalation IS well kno^™. It began in this countiy, and was first used in the exti-action of teeth, and afterwards in capital operations at the Mass. General Hospital, and in obstetrical practice. The attention of the civilised world was immedia tely drawn to the great American discovery. Every known variety of ethers, and of com- pounds containing the elements of ethers, together with volatile substances, gases, and vapours, were at once submitted to the test of experiment. It is pos- sible that better agents than those now in use will hereafter be discovered, but for the last twenty years the anajsthetic practice seems to have settled mainly on two agents—viz., sulphuric ether, with which the discovery was made, and which has thus far shown itself to be the most safe and manageable, and chloroform, which is more portable and agreeable in its odour, but wliich experience has shown to be more frequently attended with danger in its use. [Ed.]