The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-05-14 00:00:00

A GREAT RENErACTOR SHOULD BE REMEMBERED.

A correspondent ("E ' ) throws out the following hint
in The Times :

Twenty-five years ago the operating theatre of an hospital
was to the public a thing of indescribable dread, while In
private practice the approach of the surgeon with his instru-
meats of torture struck terror into countless households.
This dread is gone,—this terror is past. To one man we owe
tile great change and unspeakable good. I well recollect
Sir James Simpson, soon after the period I have named,
coming to my house fresh from the amputation of the leg of
a child, and describing how the little fellow had been thrown
into a gentle slumber through the effects of ether, the imme-
diate precursor of chloroform; how he was taken from his
led into an adjoining room, and how, on being replaced
after the eperation in his cot, the return of come:he/mess
brought with it no knowledge of what he had undergone.
" Think," said Sir James, " what the scene would have been
without the blessed influence of ether. '
, What ether then old chloroform, with which the name of
I gimpson Is Inseparably linked, has done anki will, we may
hope, In endless cases continue to to, but he through whore
Immediate agency this heaven-sent gift of freedom from
I pain in moments of otherwise terrible agony has thus been
conferred on man Is slow no more. We have this day read
the announcement of his death. A light has gone out of
the world.
purely, then, some steps will be token to mark the world's
sense of his services and loss, for it is w.t his countryinen
and countrywomen alone, but the whole human race that are
his debtors.

The following correspondenca wen puhlishel. in
Wednesday's iT/143 : -

I do not wish to deprive the tete Sir James Simp-
son of the honour claimed for hint by your correspondent
E.!' In The Times of to-day, but I an Nonni to state the
fact, known to all medical MAI tm I ms and medical men
throgghont the world, that the first application of ether as
an atuesthetic was made In Boston, lotted States, by an
obscure dentist (Dr. Morton), now no longer alive to defend
his own fame. The first public exhibition°, theettect of ether
In surgical operations was held In the operating theatre pi the
Massachusetts General Hospital, in lioatmi, in the month of
October, 1846 180 experiment with ether or with chloroform
—the use of the latter of which is undoubtedly due to Sir
James Simpson—waa made in England until several mouths
—I think nearly a year—afterwards. The documents are at
hand to prove these statements. This seems to me one of
the rare cases in which honour should he given to whom it
is due —I arn, Sir, your obedient lierValit, AN AXERICiN.
London, May 9.

Cordially sympathizing, as I do, with "Es" suggestion
to perpetuate in some worthy manner the memory of so
great a benefactor to the race as the subpict of his letter,
will you allow me to allude to a curious episode in the Meet
history of the magnificent discovery of the means of alle-
viating physical paint
Pr. Simpson, on first propounding the theory of the appli-
cation of chloroform to patients requiring surgical old, web
stoutly opposed by certain Calviniiiic objectors, who held
that to check the sensation of pain in connexion with" visi-
tations of God " was to contravene the decrees of an All-
wise Creator . .

What was his answer? That the Creator, doting the pro-
cess of extracting the rib from Adam, mast necessarily have
adopted a poinewhat correspondlnx artifice—" for did not
God throw Adam Into sleep sleep." The pietists were satis-
fied, and the discoverer triumphed over igniklo and ignorant
prejudice.—l am, Mr, J. 8. LAURIE.
Inner Temple, May 9.