MUSIC FOR OPERATIONS

Evening Star, Issue 22688, 30 June 1937, Page 5

MUSIC FOR OPERATIONS

SATISFACTORY RESULTS A peculiar relationship exists between music and narcosis. In 1901 Dr Dresser, a dentist in Paris, put earphones on the head of a patient who was to be anaesthetised with laughing gas. The device was connected with a gramophone, ahich was turned on as soon as the patient began to inhale the gas. The results were so satisfactory that the dentist adopted the method for all his patients, who stated that they woke with a pleasant sensation of wellbeing, and were spared the disagreeable dreams, with which this kind of narcosis is often connected. Basing his ideas on the experiments of the Paris dentist, the Swiss surgeon Dr Roth decided to adopt the same method for surgical operations performed under ether or chloroform. In 1903 he published a summary of the results obtained in 300 cases. _ The experiment proved entirely satisfactory. The patients were much calmer, and the period of excitement preceding the sleep was considerably shortened. Nausea and vomiting were almost eliminated. Dr Roth lays particular stress on the statement of patients who had been previously operated upon under ordinary narcosis and were therefore able to draw comparisons. Strangely enough, military marches appeared to have the most soothing effect in combination with the anaesthetic. Professor Alfred Froligh. l\f.D.. in ‘ The Now Vienna Journal,’ .Vit'lUUU