Showing papers by "John F. Forbes published in 1848"

Dr. Forbes in Reply to Mr. Newnham on the Present Aspect of Medicine

Abstract: CONCLUSIONS*1. In animals belonging to the class of Articulata, tomplete local and limited anesthesia can be produced by the local and limited application of the vapour or liquid of chloroform to individual parts of the body of the animal. 2. In Batrachian reptiles, the tail, or an individual limb, can be affected in the same way with local aneesthesia, by the local application of the chloroform; but, in addition, general anesthesia of the animals usually results in a short time, in consequence of the chloroform absorbed by the exposed part coming to affect the general system. 3. In the smaller Mammalia a single limb, or even the whole lower or pelvic half of the body, can be rendered anaesthetic by local exposure of these parts to the influence of chloroform. 4. In the human suibject partial, and, perhaps, super. ficial, local anesthesia of a part, as the hand,' can be produced by exposing it to the strong vapour of chloroform; but the resulting degree of this local anaesthesia is not sufficiently deep to allow the part to be cut or operated upon without pain. 5. Any agent possessing a stronger local benumbing, or an anoesthetic influence, would probably be dangerous, by its acting too powerfully on the general economy, before the local ancesthesia was established to a depth sufficient for operating. 6. Artificial local aneesthesia, from any known anaesthetic agents, seems objectionable in any part intended to be operated upon, in consequence of the vascular congestion and injection which attend upon and accom.pany this local anaesthesia. 7. There are few operations in which there is not previously a local broken surface; and the application of chloroform, &c., to such a surface, would be far too painful to be endured, no small degree of suffering sometimes arising from even the exposure of the unbroken skin to their action.