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.

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    culty whatever, the safety or otherwise of the administration depends upon : (1) The Vital Condition of the Patient. (2) The Method of Administration. (3) The Degree of Anaesthesia Induced. It is enough to remark here that chloroform, although in its potential aspect a terribly dangerous agent, just as gunpowder is, when restricted by appropriate arrangements to specific effects, becomes not only harmless, but is instrumental to the highest good. As in every relation of mankind to the forces and materials of Nature, it is not the force or material per se that pi’eserves or destroys, but always as it is directed and applied. The most powerful agencies, whether natural or artificial, are, in consequence of the attainable magnitude of their effects, the most valuable and essential to the life of the world ; and Nature is as likely to suspend her chemical and electrical laws to save us from the possibility of thunderstorms and volcanoes, or the fear of them, as man to abandon the useful giants of his own creation, because a misadventure may sometimes, fairly or unfairly, be attributed to them. The purport of these remarks is not unduly to magnify chloroform over the other recognised anaesthetics, since the method which it is my principal object to explain is applicable to all of them that are fluid ; but as much as possible to emphasize the fact that the strength of chloroform, were it even greater than it is, is not the quality in it which we have to fear. The para- mount consideration is the way in which it must be handled, a consideration that might seem too obvious to require men- tion, since it is tacitly assumed in regard to every agent in use, were it not that it has been called in question at present by those who are personally ignorant of the properties of chloroform, and equally ignorant of its history, and are yet not restrained by their ignorance from asserting that they cannot be other than most pernicious. The law of progress determines that, until the discovery of a still more powerful anaesthetic, we shall endeavour in this department, as in every other, to make our strongest giant our most useful .servant. As regards inadaptation to certain individuals, this must be