A system of practical surgery / by William Fergusson.

  • William Fergusson
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A system of practical surgery / by William Fergusson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    46/878 (page 22)
    in the arms; his face was pale, cold, and clammy, and his eyes had the glassy stare of speedy dissolution; yet he was roused from this alarming state by the rapid exhibition of wine, having in the course of a few minutes swallowed fourteen ounces of that fluid. Besides these arrangements, some previous understanding ought to exist between the surgeon and assistants, who must, of necessity, be present at a capital operation. One must be placed to compress the main artery, if a tourniquet is not used; another, supposing the operation is an amputation, to retract the flaps; a third to hand the instruments or take them from the surgeon ; a fourth to take charge of the sponges and warm water; there may be others to assist in securing the patient during his struggles, and of course if a large por- tion of a limb is to be removed, an assistant must be instructed to keep it steady during the operation. When the surgeon has it in his power to provide a sufficient number of assistants, he ought always to do so; occasionally, however, he must economize his forces, which he will have little difficulty in doing, if he be possessed of that natural or acquired coolness, aptitude in emergencies, and knowledge of what he is about, which are almost equally essential to the welfare of his patient and his own comfort. Since the last edition of this work was published, a vast and impor- tant change has come over the department of operative surgery. The discovery of anaesthesia, or the means of causing insensibility to pain during the performance of operations, has been made in the interval, and now, instead of wild outcries or stifled screams and groans coming from the patient under the surgeon’s instruments, he may be made to lie as quietly as if in a calm sleep, or possibly during the most painful applications of the knife, under other circumstances, he may be. men- tally engaged in the most pleasing associations of thought, or singing or humming by snatches some favourite air. It is perhaps not saying too much when this discovery is characterised as the greatest, in most respects, which has been made in the province of surgery. Much of the horror, and, doubtless, some of the hazard connected with opera- tions have now been set aside, and a patient can contemplate such means of cure with a calmness and seeming fortitude which even the bravest or most stoical could not maintain in former times. For this valuable discovery we are indebted to some of our Transatlantic brethren. The agent first used to produce this remarkable effect was sulphuric ether. There have been disputes as to the amount of merit due to various parties who have, in one way or other, contributed to the development of our knowledge of this wonderful agency. It seems generally understood that Dr. Charles Jackson, Professor of Chemistry, at Boston, suggested the use of sulphuric ether as an anae- sthetic to Dr. W. Morton, dentist, of the same city, who used it with happy effect in tooth-drawing early in October, 1846, and it is beyond all doubt that this gentleman was the first to prove that such an agent could be used safely and with perfect effect. The suggestion of Sir Humphrey Davy, in 1800, regarding the use of nitrous oxide