Artificial anaesthesia and anaesthetics . jainful disease, butalso in producing local insensibility to the ojjerations of surgery. As ageneral rule, however, the degree of success was very limited. The appli-cations of ether and chloroform are foimd, in many instances, especiallywhen applied to the mucous surface and deUcate integuments about theorifices of the body, to produce an intolerable amount of suffering. The subject of local anajsthesia remained in this condition untU theyear 1866, when Dr. B. W. Eichardson pubhshed in The Medical Timesand Gazette (February 3, 1866) an account of the
Artificial anaesthesia and anaesthetics . jainful disease, butalso in producing local insensibility to the ojjerations of surgery. As ageneral rule, however, the degree of success was very limited. The appli-cations of ether and chloroform are foimd, in many instances, especiallywhen applied to the mucous surface and deUcate integuments about theorifices of the body, to produce an intolerable amount of suffering. The subject of local anajsthesia remained in this condition untU theyear 1866, when Dr. B. W. Eichardson pubhshed in The Medical Timesand Gazette (February 3, 1866) an account of the jDroduction of local an-ttsthesia by the concentration of an ethereal sjjray upon the part to betiejnived of sensibihty. The apparatus necessary for this operation isexceedmgly simple, being, in fact, nothing more than a reinforcement ofthe common hand-ball jserfume atomizer with an additional elastic brdbto sei-ve as a reservoir of compressed au-, Ijy which a unifoiTQ cuiTent ofjuingled ether-spray and atmospheric air can be CTlEUAKN&a*.. ^^ Dr. lUchardsons Hand-ball Perfume Atomizer. By means of this ajoparatus a continuous jet of pulverized ether can bedirected upon any portion of the sm-face of the body. As the ether evap-orates it abstracts heat from the skin until its temperatm-e is depressedeven below the freezing-point of water. The skin becomes bloodless,white and taUow-like, precisely as if it had been acted on by frost or by afreezing^ mixture. In this condition it is of coui-se c|uite insensible, andmay be incised without pain. For the rapid and perfect production of thisstate, it is necessary to employ the more volatile sisecies of ether. Eich-ardson himself made use of a mixture of anhydrous ether, ha-^ing a specificgi-avity of , with hydride of amyl. Dr. Henry J. Bigelow, the well-known Boston sm-geon, made an improvement upon this mixtui-e by theintroduction of rhigolene, one of the products resulting from the distilla-tion of petroleum. This i
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectanesthe, bookyear1881
