STOVAINE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7039, 29 January 1910, Page 7

STOVAINE

SOME ADVANTAGES OF THE NEW DRUG. WELL TRIED IN NEW ZEALAND. What was stated to he the'first case .of the application in Now : Zealand of the new anaesthetic stovaine "was reported from the Northern Wairoa Hospital in yesterday's papers, but : this assertion-is apparently a good way behind tho times. For two years past, it has been ascertained by a "New Zealand Times" reporter, the new method of producing anaesthesia has been in use in at least one New Zealand hospital, that at Napier, where somo sixty cases have been treated by. its aid, with eminently satisfactory results. . '

Both Dr W. W. Moore, tho late superintendent at Napier Hospital, and his successor, Dr I. S. Wilson, have used it as the routine method of producing anaesthesia during the last two years, and have found it to be so reliable and safe that both chloroform and ether have been quite discarded in certain classes of operations. Stovaine does not produce unconsciousness at all, hut an absolute insensibility to pain of all parts of the body below the level of the chest. In fact, just recently a' method was introduced by Professor Joannesco, of Buda-Pestli, whereby it is possible to render the whole body insensible to pain, and this has actually been done with gratifying success at the Napier Hospital within the last six weeks. ' NOT WITHOUT DANGER. It is not correct, however—so a medical authority informed the " Times ", man yesterday—to say that there is no danger in tho use of stovaine. but the important point in its favour is that its chief dangers are under control. In the case of chloroform,- on. the other hand, the control is not anything like so good. Sudden death, for instance, is much less likely under stovaine than under chloroform. The former has many advantages, from both the patients and, the doctors' points of viow. . Many: patients have an absolute horror of the unconsciousness produced by chloroform, but will readily submit to the insensibility Which follows an injection of stovaine. At Napier Hospital practically all the patients declare their great preference for the new method,-especially those who have experienced .'the ..effects of chloroform or ether before. Stovaine leaves no after effects in the great majority, of cases, the only inconvenience sometimes suffered by patients being a feeling of sickness for a short period immediately after injection. WITHOUT AFTER EFFECTS. Tho' insensibility to pain which it produces lasts from one to four hours, according to the amount used, but in the case of a prolonged operation it is easy to re-inject if feeling begins to return too soon. This can be done without any fear of bad after effects. Some 12,O0f) cases of the use of stovaino are on record altogether, and in a small proportion of these after effects have admittedly followed within a few days, but the same is true of cliloroform or ether. So far ns New Zealand cases are concerned, however, no bad after .effects of any sort have been recorded.

Dr A. E. Barker, of University College Hospital, London, is the great British exponent of the new method, and his results have been exceedingly good. It is not expected, however, that stovaine will displace chloroform or ether, for each has certain advantages. In some cases it is certainly very advantageous to have the patient in a state of unconsciousness. Sto-, vaine has taken a very high place in surgery, and its discovery marks an extremely important advance in the art- of producing insensibility to pain. Other drugs used for the same purpose include novocnine and tropacoeaine, both being first cousins to cocaine.