The induction of sleep and insensibility to pain by the safe self-administration of anaesthetics / by John M. Crombie.

  • Crombie, John Mann, 1844-1883.
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The induction of sleep and insensibility to pain by the safe self-administration of anaesthetics / by John M. Crombie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    26/58 (page 28)
    This consideration, then, naturally raises the question why Chloroform and Ether, thus holding the first place as reme- dies for acute suffering in virtue' of the qualities specified, are all but neglected for such purposes except in one special class of cases. Setting aside operations, surgical and obste- trical, it is very seldom that any occasion, be the suffering what it may, is recognised as an occasion for delivery by the speediest and most efficient means. This decision does not arise from any fallacious presumption regarding the inferiority, in point of severity, of pain produced by disease to pain resulting from operation ; for our sensibility in that direction is, and always has been, acknowledged to be as great as it possibly can be.* Yet, manifestly, pain ought to be remedied on the principle of its severity and urgency, not on the prin- ciple of its remote origin, whether from instruments or disease. The contrary practice is due to sei’eral causes: causes understood to be sufficiently influential to prevent the writer from anticipating the immediate reception of the more consistent and advantageous practice. Immemorial habit has associated the relief of suffering inflicted by disease with from the fact that there are certain stages of disease when active inter- ference, aiming at a reversal of the physical necessity of dying, is to be regarded in the light of science and humanity alike as unpardonable , hut that even then the plaint of the sufferer, expressed or unexpressed, is still, as in the language of Petrarcha:— “ Morte 0 mercfe sia fini al mio dolore !” It is a happy thing that there are provisions meet eimn for this sad state, and noKdy can doubt that the more carefully they are investi- yated the more beneficial will he the result. It cannot therefore he thought, that it is with any scepticism in the value of such inqum^^^^ worthy of far more attention than they have yet received, that I seek to Idvlnce the superior claims of chloroform as an agent for the rel ef of acutTand seve^^^^ Being directly intro Inced into the circulation throu<'h the lungs, it rapidly yields the relief desired, and is susceptible Iccordin^v of exact limitation to the necessity of the occasion, since its KhS ffifialalion can, and ought to he, immediately discontinued It is very difficult, if indeed possible, to regulate with the ' solid or liquid narcotic introduced in that form, and hence the greater /^Toothache, gastralgia, tic, nephralgia, gout, &c., ma} he as excruci ating as any operation.