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.

    39/588 (page 23)
    I. TENDENCY TO CONFUSION FROM THE DISCOVERY OE CHLOROFORM RAPIDLY FOLLOWING THAT OF SULPHURIC ETHER. From some communications which I have lately received from America, I find that your observations have stirred up there, in some minds, the idea that I have held up the introduction of chloroform as an anaesthetic in Edinburgh to be antecedent, in point of time, to the introduction of sulphm-ic ether in Boston. I feel sure that you and I will mutually agree that never anything so wUd or extravagant was hinted or suggested by either of us. The first case of an anaesthetic operation under sulphuric ether occurred at Boston on the 30th September 1846. The first case of an ansesthetic operation under chloroform occurred at Edinburgh on the 15th November 1847. During the intervening thirteen months, I had worked much with sulphuric ether in midwifery, etc.; and some of our surgeons, here and elsewhere, had used it more or less extensively; but it was not by any means adopted by all. At the same time, you must allow me to remark that the ideas on the subject in your own mind, which have excited you to write, have, it appears to me, become chiefly bewildered and confused in consequence of one thing—namely, of the rapidity with which chloroform thus followed as an ansesthetic after the discovery of sulphuric ether; and in consequence also of the relative practical adaptability and superiority of the former in many respects, leading speedily to its general substitution in Europe, Asia, Australia, etc., for the latter. In the Dispensatory of the United States of America, Drs. Wood and Bache, when speaking of the use of sulphuric ether for inhalation in medicine, observe'— Many years ago [1796, etc.] its use in this way was proposed by Drs. Beddoes, Pearson, and Thornton, in England, as'a remedy in certain diseases of the lungs. As early as 1805, Dr. Warren of Boston employed ethereal inhalation to relieve the distress attending the last stage of pulmonary inflammation. About the year 1812, in Philadelphia, at a time when nitrous oxide was the subject of popular lectures, the vapour of ether was frequently breathed from a bladder for experiment or diversion, and its eS'ects in producing a transient intoxication analogous to that caused by the nitrous oxide were observed. Now, if in Boston in 1805, or in Philadelphia in 1812, the inhalation of sulphuric ether had been tried to a sufficient depth for its ansesthetic effects to be discovered in dentistry and