Little Masterpieces of Science - Health and Healing

MP3 Audio CD. Little Masterpieces of Science - Health and Healing

HEALTH AND HEALING

ESCAPE FROM PAIN: THE HISTORY OF A DISCOVERY

Sir James Paget, M.D. [Sir James Paget was one of the most eminent English surgeons of the last century: his writings on surgical themes are of the first authority. The essay, the chief portions of which follow, appeared in the Nineteenth Century Magazine, December, 1879. The editor's permission to reprint is thankfully acknowledged. The essay is contained in “Selected Essays and Addresses,” by Sir James Paget, published by Longmans, Green & Co., 1902. The same firm publishes “Memoirs and Letters of Sir James Paget,” edited by Stephen Paget, one of his sons.] The history of the discovery of methods for the prevention of pain in surgical operations deserves to be considered by all who study either the means by which knowledge is advanced or the lives of those by whom beneficial discoveries are made. And this history may best be traced in the events which led to and followed the use of nitrous oxide gas, of sulphuric ether, and of chloroform as anæsthetics—that is, as means by which complete insensibility may be safely produced and so long maintained that a surgical operation, of whatever severity and however prolonged, may be absolutely painless. In 1798, Mr. Humphry Davy, an apprentice to Mr. Borlase, a surgeon at Bodmin, had so distinguished himself by zeal and power in the study of chemistry and natural philosophy, that he was invited by Dr. Beddoes, of Bristol, to become the “superintendent of the Pneumatic Institution which had been established at Clifton for the purpose of trying the medicinal effects of different gases.” He obtained release from his apprenticeship, accepted the appointment, and devoted himself to the study of gases, not only in their medicinal effects, but much more in all their chemical a