On chloroform and other anæsthetics: their action and administrationSnow, John
History
On chloroform and other anæsthetics: their action and administration
Snow, John
Anesthetics; Chloroform; Snow, John, 1813-1858
_Lithotrity._ I have memoranda of 155 operations of lithotrity in which
I have administered chloroform. The number of cases of stone in which
these operations took place was sixty, but some of the patients had
operations performed, either without chloroform, or when it was
administered by some one else. The earliest cases of lithotrity in which
I administered chloroform were in St. George’s Hospital, and a great
number of the patients to whom I have given it were the private patients
of Mr. Fergusson, who is entirely satisfied of its utility in this
operation. Speaking of this operation in his _Practical Surgery_ (third
ed., p. 800), he says: “I am of opinion that there is not any department
of practical surgery in which anæsthesia has been of more service than
in this.” I have administered chloroform in a few operations of
lithotrity by Sir Benjamin Brodie; but I believe that he does not
approve of it in this operation, as a general rule. The following are
amongst the other surgeons whom I have frequently assisted by giving
chloroform in this operation: Mr. Cæsar Hawkins, Mr. Cutler, Mr.
Coulson, Mr. Charles Hawkins, and Mr. Henry Lee. Mr. Fergusson, in one
of his operations, extracted some portions of gutta percha bougie round
which a phosphatic calculus had formed. He was not informed of the
presence of the bougie in the bladder, until it was extracted. On
another occasion, a patient was brought from the country soon after a
bougie of this description had broken off, and he extracted with the
lithotrite the piece remaining in the bladder. It was between two and
three inches in length.
It is generally desirable to make the patient quite insensible during
the operation of lithotrity; and the patient sometimes groans during its
performance, when he is in a condition that, so far as one can judge, he
would show no sign of sensation under the use of the knife; but he, of
course, has no recollection of the operation afterwards. The bladder is
sometimes apt to expel the water which is injected, if the patient is
not well under the influence of the chloroform; but when the vapour has
been continued for a few minutes, and the narcotism is complete, the
bladder will, I believe, always hold water as well as if the operation
were performed in the waking state, and generally much better. There are
some surgeons who occasionally raise the breech of the patient for a
short time during this operation, so that the head becomes considerably
lower than the body. Stout old men generally snore more loudly when in
this position under the influence of chloroform; but I have not met with
any ill effects, nor expected any, from the head being lowered for a
short time. From ten to twenty minutes has been the most usual duration
of the operations under chloroform at which I have been present.
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