Anaesthesia and non-anaesthesia in the extraction of cataract : with some practical suggestions regarding the performance of this operation, and comparative statistics of two hundred cases / by Hasket Derby.

  • Hasket Derby
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Anaesthesia and non-anaesthesia in the extraction of cataract : with some practical suggestions regarding the performance of this operation, and comparative statistics of two hundred cases / by Hasket Derby. 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.

    14/36 page 12
    reasoning is purely theoretical, the difficulties thus conjured up being largely imaginary, and advanced by those having little experience in operating on conscious patients. SolvUur ainbiilando. For several years I have performed nearly all my extractions without ether, and have found my patients amena- ble to reason when the disadvantages attending its use were once explained to them. Nor have I ex- perienced any special difficulty from their restless- ness at the time of the operation; rather, indeed, have I been struck by the small amount of pain they appeared to suffer. In my limited experience it has even seemed as if the senile eye, affected by cataract, lost a portion of its normal sensitiveness, so many have assured me that the pain they felt was comparatively trifling. 1 have not in a single case found it necessary to use my fixation forceps after the section was completed, and, though inva- riably performing iridectomy, can find but a single dialysis recorded. The argument may be summed up as follows: In operating without ether or chloroform we claim that congestion is avoided and hsemorrhage les- sened ; that the eye can be directed by the voice instead of by the touch of the operator, thereby decidedly facilitating the exit of the lens; that the ej-e-ball retains its fullness, rendering the manipu- lation for clearing the pupil of corticalis much easier; that the answers of the patient, as to how much he sees, give otherwise unattainable informa- tion as to the clearness of the pupil; and that sub- sequent nausea is avoided, enabling the patient to
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3