Victory Over Pain

366 Pages·2012·10.61 MB·English

by  Robinson, Victor

VICTORY
OVER PAIN
A History of Anesthesia
BY VICTOR ROBINSON, M.D.
SIGMA
LONDONI IBOOKS
Ackrwwledgments
bE
AUTHOR has been helped in his anesthesia studies by
the descendants of Samuel Guthrie, discoverer of chloro
form, particularly by his grandson, Thaddeus Samuel Cham
berlain; and by the late Carl Koller, discoverer of cocaine
anesthesia. He is indebted for aid or encouragement to:
Herbert M. Alexander, who checked the voluminous data
on the ether controversy in the author's library; Dr. Fred
erick M. Allen, doubly distinguished for his pioneer achieve
ments in metabolism and in refrigeration anesthesia; Ger
bude Annan, keeper of the Rare Book Room of the New
York Academy of Medicine; Joseph J. Boris, of the Journal
of the International College of Surgeons; Dr. Miriam Drab
kin, assistant editor of the Journal of the History of Medi
cine and Allied Sciences; Dr. Paluel J. Flagg, guiding spirit
of the Society for the Prevention of Asphyxial Death; Jean
nette Fleisher; Dr. Edward Hicks Hume; Orrie Lashin; Dr.
Chauncey D. Leake, Dean of the University of Texas School
of Medicine, humanist and historian, dreamer and worker
. in the pharmacology of anesthetics; Dr. Curt Proskauer,
historian of dentistry; Dr. George Rosen, editor of the Jour
nal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences; Dr. Sey
mour Schotz, Associate in Anesthesiology, Medical College
'Vii
viii Acknowledgments
of Virginia; Dr. Anne Tjomsland, anesthetist and medical
historian; Dr. Josiah Charles Trent, surgeon· and medical
historian; Dr. George Urdang, historian of pharmacy; and
Dr. Paul Meyer Wood, whose years of hospital work as an
anesthetist, as secretary of the American Society of Anes
thetists and of the American Board of AnestheSiology, and
as chairman of the section of anestheSiology of the Ameri
can Medical Association have made him a familiar and
popular figure among the fighters against pain.
In the chronology of our subject, no event is recorded for
the year 1883, but it was the natal year of two men who
were destined to make important contributions to the con
quest of pain. For permission to dedicate his book to these
masters of modern anesthesia, the author is grateful to Dr.
Arthur Ernest Guedel, of the University of Southern Cali
fornia School of Medicine, and to Dr. Ralph Milton Waters,
of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine.
The Saturday afternoon visits of the publisher Henry
Schuman, accompanied by his associate, Lewis F. Thomp
son-delightfully prolonged on occasion to the early hours
of the morning-invariably aroused the hormonic tides of
authorship.
Contents
Introduction xiii
EARLY ,DEVELOPMENTS
1. Drugs and Dreams 3
2. Control of Pain in Antiquity 15
3. Anodynes in the Orient 23
4. Narcotics in the Middle Ages 27
5. The Renaissance 34
6. The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries 40
ON THE THRESHOLD
7. Humphry Davy 47
8. Henry Hill Hickman 56
9. Mesmerism in Anesthesin 67
10. Before the Discovery 77
THE DISCOVERY
11. Crawford Williamson Long 83
12. Horace Wells 93
13. Charles Thomas Jackson 108
14. William Thomas Green Morton 119
15. The Controversy 134
THE RECEPTION OF THE DISCOVERY
IN EUROPE
16. Robert Liston 141
17. Central Europe 150
18. France 161
19. Nicolai lvanovic~ PirogofJ 167
i.x
Content8
CHLOROFORM
20. Samuel Guthrie 175
21. James Young Simpson 191
22. An Anonymous Letter 209
23. John Snow 219
24. Death as Anesthetist 229
THE BEGINNINGS OF LOCAL
ANESTHESIA
25. Beniamin Ward Richardson 237
26. Carl Koller 246
FROM RAG AND BOTTLE
27. Techniques 259
28. Twilight Sleep 267
29. Continuous Caudal Analgesia 278
30. Endotracheal Anesthesia 280
31. Rectal Anesthesia 288
32. Intravenous Anesthesia 291
33. Spinal Anesthesia 295
34. Refrigeration Anesthesia 298
35. Three Twentieth Century Anesthetics 304
36. Curare 309
EPILOGUE
Musings by the Nameless Monument 317
SELECTED AND ANNOTATED
323
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND
335
INDIVIDUALS
List of Illustrations
PAGE
Hellebore 5
Diffany 6
Opium 7
DioscOf'ides receiving a root of the mandrake
from the Goddess of Discovery 8
Hemlock 10
Henbane 11
Mulberry 12
Leffuce 13
Hops 14
Hypnos 16
Hashish 18
Trephining without an anesthetic 32
The first picture ever made of an amputation 36
Clamp used for compression anesthesia 43
. The apparatus for rendering surgical operations painless 147
An English reaction to the discovery of ether 157
Surgeon's lancet ring 318
HALF-TONE PLATES
FACING PAGE
JohnArdeme 26
Early use of alcoholic fumes for anesthesia 27
The healing-master treating varicose veins 42
A drawing by Rowlandson of an amputation
without anesthesia 43
Sir Humphry Davy's gas machine 50
Sir Humphry Davy 51
xz
tcii List of Illustrations
Henry Hill Hickman experimenting with anesthesia
on animals 58
Mesmer practicing animal magnetism 74
Crawford Williamson Long 82
Horace Wells 82
Charles Thomas lackson 82
William Thomas Green Morton 83
The first public demonstration of anesthesia
with ether 114
Ether Room in the Massachusetts General Hospital and
the plaque commemorating "the first public demon-
stration of anesthesia'" 115
A French reaction to the introduction of ether 154
A French reaction to the introduction of ether 155
Nicolai Ivanovich PirogofJ 170
Sir I ames Young Simpson 171
lohn Snow 218
Plastic caricature of the first choloroform narcosis
in Berlin 219
Sir Beniamin Ward Richardson 234
Carl Koller 235
William Stewart Halsted 250
lames Leonard Coming 251
Modern anesthesia apparatus: an 8-flowmeter unit of the
Metric Anesthesia Apparatus 266
Modern anesthesia apparatus: base and upright model
of the Metric Anesthesia Apparatus 267
lames T. Gwathmey, Amo B. Luckhardt, Chauncey D.
Leake, Ralph M. Waters 274
Arthur E. Guedel, Rudolph Matas, Paul M. Wood, Fran-
cis M. McMechan 275
Modern anesthesia apparatus: Texas model of the Metric
Anesthesia Table 306
Ether Monument in the Public Garden of Boston 3(J7
Introduction
LIE
AUTHOR began an earlier book (The Story of Medi
cine, 1931) with the line: "The first cry of pain through the
primitive jungle was the first call for a physician."
The present volume is devoted exclusively to pain and
its conquest. When Simpson, one of the foremost fighters
against pain, was created a baronet in 1866, he adopted as
his coat-of-arms the rod of Aesculapius with the words
Victo dolore. The translation of that motto, Victory Over
Pain, serves as the title of this book.
The first operations performed with sharpened stones
and pointed flints in the shade of rock-shelters or under
forest trees, have no recorded history, but we know what
uninvited guest was present. Surgery learned many lessons
through the ages, but never was it able to banish Pain. The
screams of the patient which rang in the hairy ears of the
Stone Age surgeon were heard in the classic period by
the disciples of Hippocrates, and the undiminished cries
echoed down the corridors of modem hospitals. All who
sought release from disease at the point of the knife were
first compelled to pay homage to Pain.
One hundred years ago, a vapor in the operating-room
of the Massachusetts General Hospital blotted out suffer
x~~z
lCiv Introduction
ing from surgery. It was the most beneficent change in the
history of surgery, and has since been hailed as America's
greatest gift to mankind.
In every branch of the healing art, Europe had long been
the mentor of America. We studied in Edinburgh, or took
postgraduate courses in Vienna; for texts we reprinted
British books or translated them from French and German.
With anesthesia the situation was reversed. The academic
gown fell from the venerable European shoulders, and the
old schoolmaster became the eager pupil: America taught
Europe the alphabet of anesthesia.
This book, written on the eve of the centennial of merci
ful surgery, relates the long struggle of science against suf
fering, unsuccessful for ages and seemingly no nearer the
goal-until the unexpected achievement. The revelation of
anesthesia is a chapter in the life of science where it merges
with the history of humanity: as such it should be part of
the general education of the present generation.
V.R.
EARLY DEVELOPMENTS