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An Inquiry Into the Origin of Modern Anęsthesia
An Inquiry Into the Origin of Modern Ansthesia Author:Truman Smith General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1867 Original Publisher: Brown and Gross Subjects: Anesthetics Medical / Anesthesiology Medical / Pharmacology Medical / Pain Medicine Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you... more » buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER IV. ANAESTHESIA IS CARRIED BY WELLS INTO GENERAL SURGERY, AND HE RECOGNIZES THE ANAESTHETIC PROPERTIES OP THE VAPOR OP SULPHURIC ETHER LONG IN ADVANCE OF THE BOSTON EXPERIMENT. Having, in my last chapter, taken up the claims of Horace Wells as the originator of modern anaesthesia, and considered whether he was the first to conceive the idea, and the first to make it practical, and having analyzed the case, and presented several of its most important elements, under separate heads, with proofs such as is believed must be satisfactory to every impartial mind, I now resume the same subject to present additional considerations. 1. Wells was not content to demonstrate the availability of the nitrous oxyd as an anaesthetic agent in dentistry only ; he also took part in carrying it into general surgery, and proved that it could be used effectually for every purpose to which any other anaesthetic agent can be applied. The first case to which I shall advert, occurred on the 17th day of August, 1847, and consisted in the extirpation of a large scirrhous testicle, by E. E. Marcy, M. D., then of Hartford, but at present of the city of New York. The case is reported at length in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Sept. 1st, 1847, and the article is from the pen of Dr. Marcy. The evidence on this subject may be found in Smith's Anaesthesia, pp. 68 to 71. Dr. Marcy swears that Dr. Wells " administered the gas." "The complete success of the nitrous oxyd in this...« less