Abstract
III.
Experimental Researches on Anesthesia Local and General. THE revival of methods for rendering surgical operations on men and animals perfectly painless, while it has been one of the greatest of the advances of modern medical art, has not been without its alloy. The present generation can scarcely appreciate what were the scenes of the operating theatre before the introduction of anaesthesia. The present generation that is not medical cannot appreciate now what is the scene at an operation when the agent employed to prevent pain proves an agent of death. One surgeon I know has been present at six of these fatal catastrophes under and from anaesthetics. Such an experience shakes the strongest heart. Here is a human being talking cheerfully and resigning himself with full confidence to his medical friends. The operation to be performed may be the act of seconds only, but the dread of the pain enforces on the operator the necessity of administering the anaesthetic. A few inhalations of the narcotic vapour are made, and in an instant the body, a moment or two ago animated and full of life and energy, is lifeless in the hands of the administrator of the narcotic.
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RICHARDSON, B. Abstract Report to “Nature” on Experimentation on Animals for the Advance of Practical Medicine 1 . Nature 14, 197–199 (1876). https://doi.org/10.1038/014197b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/014197b0