The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1896-11-13
SURGERY NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS..
The Horror of the Knife Up to the Discov-
cry of Anaesthesia Fifty Years Ago.
From the Philadelphis Rsoord

(From the Philadelphia Record
One of the most interesting papers
read at the recent celebration in Boston
of the fiftieth anniversary of the first ad.
ministration of ether in surgical oper
alton was that by DR.. John Asburst of
this city. on Surgery Before the Days
of Anaesthetics. 1t wildly recalls the
horrors of those days when the surgeons
knife was an object of for greater terror
than now, and inflicted untold tortures
upon the conscious patient.
"a study of the condition of surgery
before the the days of anaesths la, /" said
DR.. Ashurst. "rsveals on the on Q hand
picture of heroic boldness and mastery
self-control on the part of the surgeon,
and on the other CHASTITY panorama,
sometimes of stoic fortitude and endur-
ance, sometimes of abiect terror and
humiliation-Dut always Of agonizing
wretchedness and pain on the part of
the unhappy victim who required the sur
geon's aid.
The 'pitilessness, which Ceious
urged as an essential trait liz the opera
tive surgeon was, before the days of an
aesthesla. feature in the surgeon g Ca
reer which impressed very strongly the
public generally as well as those imme-
diateiy connected with the operation. 1t
10 interesting to recall that Sir James
Simpson of Edinburgh, shortly after be-
| ginning his professional studies, was SO
affected by seeing the terrible agony of
a poor Highland woman under amputa-
ton of the breast that he resolved to
abandon. a medical career and seek other
occupation; happily his intention was
reconsidered, and he returned to his
studies, asking himself Can anything
be done to make operations less painful?'
and. as every one knows in less than
twenty years became high priest of
anaesthesia, and the introducer into sur
gical and osbtetrical practice of ether's
great rival, chloroform.
'No Drawer or more gallant gentleman
ever lived than Admiral Viscount Nell
son, and after his right elbow had been
shattered by French bullet in the
assault at Teneriffe he manifested the
utmost courage. refusing to be taken to
the nearest ship lest the sight of his In
jury should alarm the wife of fellow
officer whose OWN fate was uncertain and
when his own ship was reached he
climbed up its side without assistance
| saying: Tell the surgeon to make haste
and get his Instruments 7 know I must
lose my right arm SO the sooner it is off
the better. He underwent the amputa-
ton we learn from O private letter of
| one of his midshipmen with the same
| f1rrnness and courage that have always
marked his character. And yet SO pain
fully was be affected by the GOODNESS Of
the operators knife that when next 60
ing into action at the famous battle Of
the Nile he gayo standing orders to his
surgeons that hot water should always
be kept in readiness during an engage
| ment SO that IL another operation should
be required he might at least have the
poor. comfort Of being cut with warm
instruments.
con tho side of the surgeon we find
throughout the ages constant effort to
| diminish the terrOrs of operations and a
continuous reprobation of the distressful,
not to say cruel, modes of practice
adopted by preceding generations. And
yet the time Is not very far distant from
ours when they Topped off a limb by
striking it violently with heavy knife;
that time when they knew neither how
to stop nor how to prevent hem
| orrhage but by burning the part whence
the blood jetted with boiling oil or the
red-hot iron; that time when surgeons
armed themselves at every moment with
pincels with burning chuteries and
with instruments. the representations
even of which cause terror.
'tThe belief that operations might be
present in the minds of surgeons from
| the earliest periods. Witness the ac-
counts of the Memphis stone, described by
| Dioscorides and Plny, which by steep
| ing in vinegar was made to give forth
| the fumes of carbonic acid; and of the
mandragora, employed, according to
| Theodoric, when mixed with other mar
from which the. patient could only be
aroused by the fumes of vinegar. So
| profound was the stupor induced by this
drug that Bodin assures US that under
| it's influence a man submitted without
| consciousness to painful operation
and continued to sleep for several days
| thereafter.
"vigo speaks OF the whole body being
| brought asleep by the smelling of a
sponge wherein opium Is, but warns his
| readers that the practice is dangerous,
because the use of opium Is sometimes
followed by gangI enc. In his work on
| Natural Magic Baptista Porta speaks of
a volatile drug kept in leaden vessels
which produced sleep when applied to
the nostrils and Perrin suggests that this
may actually have been ether or SONS
other of our modern anaesthetic agents.
mental preocoupation was sometimes
sought as means of preventing pain.
Richard Wiseman found that soldiers
dreaded the loss of limb much less if he
were removed Immediately, while they
were. in the heat of the fight than it the
operation was postponed until next day !;
wherefore he says. scut 1t off quickly,
while the soldier is heated and In met.
tle' and kenauldin recalls the case of
the aimiable Dolomieu, who, exposed to
the pangs of starvation in Neapolitan
dungeon, measurabiy alleviated his
own distress by engaging in the compost
ton of a treatise on mineralogy, while
his unfortunate servant and fellow pris-
oner, who had not the same intellectual
resources, was hungry enough for bot b.
''But the presence Of pain WAS not the
only evil dreaded by our predecessors in