Crawford Williamson Long (1815-1879) : the pioneer of anesthesia and the first to suggest and employ ether inhalation during surgical operations / By Dudley W. Buxton...

  • Buxton, Dudley Wilmot.
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Crawford Williamson Long (1815-1879) : the pioneer of anesthesia and the first to suggest and employ ether inhalation during surgical operations / By Dudley W. Buxton... Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    mesmerism, and recommended the induction of the mesmeric state as adequate to prevent pain in surgical operations. Notwithstanding thus sanctioned, I was an unbeliever in the science, and of the opinion that if the mesmeric state could be produced at all it was only on those of strong imagination and weak minds, and was to be ascribed solely to the workings of the patients' imagina- tions. Entertaining this opinion, I was the more particular in my experiments in etherization. Surgical operations are not of frequent occurrence in a country practice, and especially in the practice of a young physician, yet I was fortunate enough to meet with two cases in which I could satisfactorily test the anaesthetic powers of each. From one of these patients I removed three tumours the same day. The inhalation of ether was used only in the second operation, and was effectual in preventing pain, while the patient suffered severely from the extir- pation of the other tumours. In the other case I amputated two fingers of a negro boy. The boy was etherized during one amputation, and not during the other; he suffered during one operation and was insensible during the other. I have procured the certificates of the lady from whom the tumours were removed and of her husband, who was present and witnessed the operations (see Facsimile 5). These certificates were produced in preference to those establishing other operations, because they not only show that the experiments were continued from year to year, but also show that they were conducted so as to test the power of etherization. After fully satisfying myself of the power of ether to produce anaesthesia, I was desirous of administering it in a severer surgical operation than any I had performed. In my practice, prior to the published account of the use of ether as an anaesthetic, I had no opportunity of experimenting with it in a capital operation, my cases being confined, with one exception, to the extirpation of small tumours and the amputation of fingers and toes. I have stated that ether was frequently inhaled in this and some of the adjoining counties for its exhilarating effects, and although I am conscious that I do not deserve any credit for introducing its use for that purpose, yet as others through their friends have claimed to be the first to show its safety most of the certificates I have obtained establish the fact of its frequent inhalation for its exhilarating effects. I met with E. H. Goodman, who was present the night ether was first inhaled in Jefferson, and who removed to Athens, and introduced its inhalation in that place, and presented his certificate. All the young gentlemen who were present the night I first administered ether, with one exception, are living, and their certificates can be procured, if necessary. I have now, in a very concise manner, presented a plain unvarnished account of some of my experiments in etherization, and have said nothing of the comparative methods of ether, and other anaesthetics, because that was foreign to my present subject. Had I been engaged in the practice of my profession in a city where surgical o]jerations were performed daily, the discovery would, no