DRAMAS OF MEDICINE

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 April 1936, Page 8

DRAMAS OF MEDICINE

THE RESULTS OF CHLOROFORM In the lives of most eminent doctors who have made important discoveries there is drama. Noteworthy in this respect was the career of Sir James Simpson, who risked as many lives as the proverbial cat’s in seeking a better anaesthetic than ether. Sir William Hale-White, himself distinguished in medicine, tells us in “Great Doctors of the Nineteenth Century” that Simpson never tried any drua on animals before experimenting on himself. According to Playfair, the I chemist, Simpson once went to his laboratory and wanted to inhale some liquid forthwith, but Playfair insisted that it should first be tried on two rabbits. They quickly died under it. Once, after swallowing some decoction, “Simpson was insensible for two hours; on another occasion, after the discovery of chloroform, he tried on himself a substance which brought on such irritation of breathing that he had to be kept under chloroform to relieve him. He tried the effect of drinking a mixture of aerated water and chloroform; the butler gave the cook some; she fell down insensible and he rushed to fetch Simpson to revive her. It really was a great piece of good luck 4 that no fatal tragedy followed all these experiments.” Dramatic and exciting indeed was Simpson’s first experiment with chloroform, undertaken in co-operation with his assistants, Dr. George Keith and Dr. Matthews. Late at night on November 4, 1847, after a hard day’s work, they met as usual in the diningroom to resume their inhalation of various drugs from tumblers. Then Simpson remembered some chloroform which had been dumped among a heap of waste paper. He inhaled first; seeing that no harm resulted, the others followed. Immediately, Sir William quotes, “an unwonted hilarity seized the inhalers; they became bright eyed, very happy and .very loquacious, expatiating on the delicious aroma of the new fluid. The conversation was of unusual intelligence and quite charmed the listeners —some ladies of the family and a naval officer, brother-in-law of Dr. Simpson. But suddenly there was talk of sounds being heard like those of a cotton mill.” A silence descended on the company, then all three fell from thenchairs with a crash. When Simpson recovered he was saying to himself, “This is far stronger and better than ether.” He was prostrate on the floor; Duncan was snoring heavily; Keith, violently kicking the table above him. Mrs. Simpson and the others were in a state of confusion and alarm. Nevertheless, there were further trials that night; they “were so satisfied with the results that the festivities of the evening did not terminate till the late hour of 3 a.m.” Simpson’s niece, Miss Petrie, also inhaled the drug, and as she fell asleep cried out, “I am an angel. Oh, I am an angel.” Thus was a great i discovery made.

Sir William further quotes a story to the effect that, on one occasion, “the chloroform bottle was knocked over and broken during an operation. Simpson at once cut out a piece of carpet on which it was all spilled, put this over the patient's face, and thus the operation was completed.” Another famous doctor who lived a dramatic life was William Stokes, pioneer in the use of the stethoscope. In the famine year, 1826, typhus raged in Dublin; the poor lay dying in the streets. Stokes slaved to cope with the epidemic, tending the sick from half-past seven in the morning till midnight.

ings as having fever. The father was in high delirium, and as 1 approached him started off and ran down the street; the mother was lying at the foot of the door perfectly insensible, with an infant screaming on Ihe breast,’ where it had sought milk in vain, and the other two filled the air with their lamentations . . . No one would go near them to bring them even a drop of cold water. In a short time, however, I succeeded in having them all carried to the hospital; they have since recovered.” In 1832 a serious cholera epidemic afflicted Ireland. Stokes, accompanied by a Mr. Rumley, was sent to investigate a mysterious death at Kingstown, and thus encountered the first case. His son, Sir William Stokes, the surgeon, records that “outside the house, in which the body lay, a crowd was anxiously awaiting their decision. The announcement was first received with silent dismay, then came a burst of frenzy and indignation. A furious crowd of men, women and children hurled stones, mud and brickbats at them from all sides. They escaped injury almost by a miracle; their carriage was battered and broken by the missiles thrown at them, and it was only by whip and spur that their postillions outstripped their pursuers.”

Stokes was the last to befriend one of Ireland’s great poets. One day, when he was at the Meath Hospital, a half-naked, wretched-looking man sought admission. He proved to be Clarence Mangan, opium addict and incorrigible drunkard, invariably on the verge of starvation. When Stokes recognised and spoke to nim, Mangan said: “You are the first who has spoken one kind word to me for many years.” Stokes had him put in a private room, himself provided extra clothes and food and paid the funeral expenses. He was so struck with the beauty of Mangan’s features alter death that he got Burton to make a sketch, which is now in the National Gallery of Ireland. A plaster cast was also taken. Sir William gives us other glimpses of the dramatic side of his seventeen famous doctors; Sir Patrick Manson in primitive China, practising in a room open to the street because the natives disliked being “lured into a hidden consulting room”; Marshall Hall visiting the hospitals of Europe and walking the six hundred miles .from Paris to Gottingen alone, with pistol cocked for fear of wolves; Sir Charles Bell rushing over to Brussels without passport, after the Battle of Waterloo, to operate from morn till night on gunshot wounds; Edward Jenner scorning to make money out of his smallpox vaccine discovery and asking, “What is fame? A gilded butt, for ever pierced with the arrows of malignancy.” The work, for .its own sake, was the prime consideration of these pioneers, as it is of most medical men the world over; and it is inspiring to read of their achievements in Sir William’s terse, precise, factual style, so characteristic of the noble profession he follows. I