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
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.
49/588 (page 33)
![ber. Wlien I saw Mr. Liston in London, during tlie following Cliristmcas holidays, lie expressed to me the opinion that the new auajsthetic would be of special use to him,—who was so swift an operator,—as he thought, like Dr. Bigelow, it could only be used for a brief time. I went back, however, from this London visit to Edinburgh, bent on testing its applicability to midwifery, and found that it could be safely used for hours, etc. But is its application to midwifery of limited importance, as now in the fervour of disputation you seem anxious to affirm ? Your words in- your first article regarding the commencement of anes- thetics in Boston are these:—That ansesthetic inhalation began in tliis country, and was first used in the extraction of teeth, and after- wards [2] in capital operations in the Massachusetts General Hospi- tal ; and [3] in obstetrical practice. You adduce thus three kinds of practice in which it was used in Boston—namely (1) dentistry; (2) surgery; and (3) midwifery. You have omitted medicine, pro- bably because you well knew the employment of the inhalation of sulphuric ether had been introduced (as we have seen in a previous part of this letter) into medical practice by Dr. Pearson half-a- century before. Holding, as you now affect to declare, that the use of an£esthetics in obstetrical practice is a matter of limited import- ance, upon what ground, may I venture to ask, did you, only two or three months ago, in your first attack, adduce its application to midwifery as one of its three chief applications ? Further, among these three chief applications, may I ask you, in all honour and honesty, is its use not,—even in your opinion,—a matter of infinitely less importance in dentistry than in midwifery 1 Of the relative value of any new practice, such as artificial antesthesia, we are bound to judge by its utility, not in any specialised practice, as that of a surgical hospital, but in the general practice of the general practi- tioner. Now most general practitioners have 20 or 30 cases at least of labour in which they may employ antesthetics for every one case of surgery in which its use could be adopted by them; surgical cases being rare, and obstetrical cases common, in general practice. You practise, and have, I believe, all along practised, chiefly as a physi- cian, and are hence, perhaps, no good judge in the matter; but let mc extract for you from the volume of Official Documents published by your townsman Dr. Morton, the opinions of one or two general practitioners on the subject. It is, says Dr. Appleton, in obstet- ric practice that I have most frequently used these most valuable agents, and I regard their usefulness in this relation as among the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2146621x_0049.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
