ON THE

INHALATION

OF THE

VAPOUR OF ETHER

IN

SURGICAL OPERATIONS:

CONTAINING A

DESCRIPTION OF THE VARIOUS STAGES OF ETHERIZATION,

AND

A STATEMENT OF THE RESULT OF NEARLY EIGHTY OPERATIONS IN WHICH

ETHER HAS BEEN EMPLOYED IN ST. GEORGE'S AND

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE HOSPITALS.

BY

JOHN SNOW, M.D. UNIV. LOND.

FELLOW OF THE ROYAL MEDICAL AND CHIRURGICAL SOCIETY,

LECTURER ON FORENSIC MEDICINE.

LONDON:

JOHN CHURCHILL, PRINCES STREET, SOHO.

1847.

Source: Snow, John. On the inhalation of the vapour of ether in surgical operations. British Journal of Anaesthesia 25(1):53-67 [part 1], 25(2) 162-169 [part 2], 25(3) 253-267 [part 3], 25(4) 349-382, 1953.

 PREFACE

From questions addressed to me by medical visitors and students, after the operations in the two hospitals in which I have had the honour of frequently administering the ether, I judged that a fuller account than I had hitherto given of the process might be useful and not unacceptable to many members of the profession, and that there would be some advantage in presenting it in a separate form, although, as a general rule, the medical periodicals and transactions of societies offer the best medium for communications of moderate length like the present.

I have treated as briefly as I could, in the following pages, of the chief application only of the great discovery that will render last winter a memorable epoch in the annals of medical science. I have not even alluded to the use of the vapour of ether in medicine or midwifery, and I have not entered on the relations of etherization to medical science or physiology, although there is a tempting field for research; for the power we have acquired, through the discovery of our medical brethren in America, of inducing at will and with perfect safety such a state of insensibility as we should previously have thought to be alarming, cannot be without its influence on the progress of our knowledge of the diseases of which insensibility forms a symptom, and of the functions of the nervous system generally.

The remarks in the text are confined strictly to the practical part of the subject, and a few explanatory notes that seemed to be required are placed in a short appendix.

The inhalation of ether will, no doubt, have superior works to the present dedicated to its elucidation before long, not only from increase of knowledge respecting it, but from improved ways of treating on it, for it is not easy to reduce a new branch of science to suitable language in the first attempts.

54, FRITH STREET, SOHO SQUARE,

September, 1847.