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
At last York must be again left; the London student life was in view. In
the summer of the year at which we have arrived, 1836, he set off from
York to Liverpool, and, trudging it afoot from Liverpool through the
whole of North and South Wales, turned London-ward, calling at Bath by
the way, on a visit to his uncle, Mr. Empson, to whom, to the end of his
life, he was devotedly attached. October 1836—eventful October—brought
him to the “great city”, and placed him on the benches of the Hunterian
School of Medicine in Windmill-street: a school long since closed, and
now almost a myth; like the mill which gave the name to the locality.
I am indebted to the courtesy of Mr. Joshua Parsons of Beckington, near
Bath, for an insight into the life and manners of my beloved friend
during his student career. Mr. Parsons had the happiness to be the
special fellow-student of Snow. Their friendship, cemented early in
life, never declined, but had added to it, “on my part,” says Mr.
Parsons, “respect and admiration for the solid talents and industry of
my old colleague.” Speaking of their common labours, Mr. Parsons writes
as follows:
“Our acquaintance commenced in 1836, at the Hunterian School of Medicine
in Windmill-street, where we were both dissecting at that time. It
happened that we usually overstayed our fellows, and often worked far on
into the evening. The acquaintance thus grew into intimacy, which ended
by our lodging and reading together. We were constant companions from
that time till I left town, in October 1837. During that period Dr. Snow
was, as a student, characterized by the same mental qualities which have
marked him ever since. Not particularly quick of apprehension, or ready
in invention, he yet always kept in the foreground by his indomitable
perseverance and determination in following up whatever line of
investigation was open to him. The object of this steady pursuit with
him was always _truth_: the naked truth, for its own sake, was what he
sought and loved. No consideration of honour or profit seemed to have
power to bias his opinions on any subject. At the period of our
co-residence he was a strict vegetarian, and many and great were the
controversies held between us on the subject. These led to trials of our
comparative strength and endurance, in one of which, on Easter Monday
1837, we walked to St. Alban’s, and back to town through Harrow,—a
distance, I believe, of rather more than fifty miles. On reaching the
Edgeware Road, my companion was fairly beaten, and obliged to reach home
in an omnibus. But though this, you will say, shows a fair amount of
strength, yet it was my impression that my friend’s constitutional
powers were impaired by his mode of living, for I observed that he
suffered from an amount of physical excitability not to be looked for in
a man of his bodily powers and placid mental organization. I remember,
on two or three occasions, so slight an injury as a cut of the finger
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
On chloroform and other anæsthetics: their action and administration — John Shaqi
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