The Russellville Democrat., 1892-06-02

theatre. turned over, but kept my legs, saw in kind of haze the man being carried away, and came back to thorough consciousness list ening to the short lecture wlich Dr. Lawrie was delivering in relation to the reasons for the operation, the manner in which it had been con- ducted and the chances for and against recovery.
 "Unless a man kept at work in the operating theatre he never, in those days, become hardened to the business. Even then, the harden ing was not permanent, and Dr. Lawrie told me that he never woke on operating day without feeling load of care and anxiety that would not wear of until the labors of his day were ended.
 ssIn this he was not alone, for Cheselden, the leading surgeon of the reign of Queen Anne, and the first to restore sight to the blind by an operation. to whom one of his grateful patients addressed the couplet,
 So swift thy hand, could not feel
 The progress of the cutting steel,
 never undertook an operation with out being blanched and experience ing a sensation of anxiety that was like seizure, which all his moral courage could scarcely control"
 If the introduction of an@sthetics made this change for the operators, what did 1t do for the patientsl Speaking generally, we know that it put them beyond the reach of pain. Dr. Richardson says that the pa tients approached the table some times in a sort of trance, always nerved for the ordeal. The women faced the operations better than the men as rule, and two facts impressed themselves on his mind, that he rarely knew person whose mind was made up to undergo the opera ton shrink from 1t at the last through fear of pain, and that he rarely, if ever, saw a patient shed tears during the operation. Sub mission to the necessity of the or deal was followed by sort of holy courage, which lasted until the oper- ation began. Then came an almost certain change of view, and in sistance that the operation should be stopped at all risks, and then re- quest for the proceedings to finish as rapidly as possible. These different pleadings, says Dr. Richardson, frequently repeated become stereo- typed on the minds of the observers so distinctly that the actual stage of an operation might be calculated from them by those accustomed to the proceedings. ]"
 Besides few cases of weeping there were few faintings during those old operations unless from loss of blood. The patients were too much occupied in mind to faint and the pain seemed to be stimulating antidote. This fact actually stood in the way of the progress of an@sthetics for some surgeons declared that it was bad practice to annul pain as it was a good stimulant and kept the patient up to the mark.
 To nitrous oxide succeeded almost immediately chloric ether and then chloroform after that came methy- lene, introduced by Dr. Richardson, and now to produce local anmsthesia coca and its products are used. Meanwhile has sprung up a new school of surgery. In January, 1847, Dr. (afterward Sir James, Simpson administered ether in confinement case, and since then have occurred those wonderful achievements of abdominal sur- gery," so common nowadays that the ignorant know not how wonder ful they are.
 One objection offered by surgeon to the use of an@sthetics has been mentioned. Another objection was that man was made to suffer, that pain was 2 part of the pain of Adam, and that the annulment of pain was sinful and opposed to the divine de- cree. In answer to this, Dr. Simp- son showed that the first operation performed on man was the excision of rib from Adam, out of which to make man, and that before begin ming to operate God himself cast the man into a deep sleep. We can laugh now at the objection and the argument, but fifty years ago it was on such objections and arguments that hurg the question of the con- tinuation or cessation of the conquest of pain.-New York Sun.
 Would You Have Peace at Home?