On aether and chloroform as anæsthetics : being the results of about 11,000 administrations of those agents personally studied in the hospitals of London, Paris, etc., during the last ten years / by Charles Kidd.

  • Kidd, Charles.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On aether and chloroform as anæsthetics : being the results of about 11,000 administrations of those agents personally studied in the hospitals of London, Paris, etc., during the last ten years / by Charles Kidd. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    thetics are noticed in Pliny and Dioscorides, while even so early as the third century the dusty manu- scripts of our libraries tell of a certain Chinese physician, named Moa-tho, who performed many surgical operations in this fashion. Guy de Chau- liac and Theodoric speak even of anaesthetics applied by inhalation ; the references to the operations of the latter bj a quaint old writer in 1538 are start- ling and characteristic. Speaking of the mode of operating, as practised by various surgeons before that epoch, it is said some give their patients angesthetic medicines, in order that the patients may not feel the cutting with the knife. Opium, man- dragora, or succus morells, dipping in it a sponge, and letting this dry in the sun, and then, when used, placing this medicated sponge in hot water, which they give to the patient to inhale till sleep is produced, and when the patient is asleep the surgeon then performs the operation. [ Aucuns leur donnent medicines obdormiferes qui les endor- ment, afin que ne sentent incision; opium mandra- goree succus morellee et plongent dedans esponge, et la laissent seccher au soleil, et ils mettent cette esponge en eaue chaulde et leurs donnent a odorer tant quilz prennent sommeil, et quant ilz sont endor- mis Iz font I'operation.] This Author even de- scribes what is to be done in case this process of inhalation should prove too soporific and the anaes- thetic effect should last too long, for then the patient must be sprinkled with water, and a particularly medicated vinegar, like our aromatic vinegar, should be given the patient to inhale! An old English poet, too, has often been referred to, who says he will imitate the pity of old surgeons who, before