The Daily News FRIDAY, AUGUST 16, 1929. CONQUEST OF PAIN.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 August 1929, Page 8

The Daily News FRIDAY, AUGUST 16, 1929. CONQUEST OF PAIN.

'The great strides that have been • made in surgery have been ren-i dered possible by the use of anaesthetics. Needless to say, these medical agents employed for the removal of pain, especially in surgical operations, by suspending sensibility, either locally or generally, have occupied considerable attention and experiment on the part of experts. It is well known that from the earliest times various specifics., were used■ for the conquest of pain, these being, however, mostly crude and sometimes dangerous agents, besides being frequently ineffective. It is considered that the starting point of the science of modern anaesthetics was the discovery by Dr. Humphry Davy, in 1800, as the result of a number of experiments, of the properties of nitrous oxide as an effective agent for suspending sensibility, and that agent for conquering pain was hailed as a valuable help in the work of the. surgeon. Nearly twenty years after, Faraday established the view that sulphuric ether was likely to prove an advance on nitrous oxide, but really no advance was made beyond the region of experiment until Dr. Wells, an American dentist, advocated the inhalation of sulphuric ether, the use of which was chiefly confined to dental operations. Early in 18-17, Sir James Simpson made the first application of ether in a case of midwifery, but towards the end of that year he had his attention called to the efficacy of chloroform, which he found was far more suitable than ether, though the general effects of both are very similar. At the same time, experience revealed that chloroform had a tendency to enfeeble the heart’s action more readily than ether. Since then other agents for deadening pain have been used, both generally and locally, but the danger of collapse has always been present in certain cases, requiring the most particular care and skill on the part of those administering anaesthetics—not always with success. Where the margin between life and death is so small as to constitute an ever present danger, it can readily be understood that humanity has been anxiously awaiting a new era of anaesthetics wherein the element of fatal consequences has been eliminated, or as near thereto as possible. According to Dr. F. H. McMechan, who is Secretary-General of the International Anaesthetic Research Society, and a world-wide authority on anaesthesia; recently arrived at Auckland, this new era of pain conquest has made its appearance, and holds the possibility, not only of successful surgery, but of reducing hospital maintenance costs. Further,, that gas oxygen anaesthesia is so rapidly induced, and recovery is

so rapid, that each patient’s stay in hospital is so shortened that twenty-five per cent, more patients can be operated on in one hospital without adding a bed or a nurse. Such results cannot fail to be most welcome news both to the hospital authorities and the patients. Moreover, the rapidity of the healing would go far to allay that natural dread of a surgical . operation which many sufferers feel. In maternity hospitals this method of conquering pain should prove an inestimable boon, more especially as mothers and their offspring can be returned home, states Dr. McMechan, on the sixth, or eighth day, instead of at. the end of a fortnight. Possibly the most pleasing result of this anaesthia is to be found in the fact that the newer gas era will tend to wipe out a quarter of the maternal and infantile death rate, a most valuable result. To show the great advance which has been made in anaesthetics, it is claimed that perhaps, th? most revolutionary field upon which their use is now entering, is that of the treatment of diseases apart from surgery. According to Dr. McMechan, anaesthesia is being used at the present time in the treatment of diseases caused by germs which die in the air, and the use of compressed gas is finding an extended sphere of operation in pneumonia, heart and kidney diseases, as well as burns. We are told that it is not even necessary to give oxygen by inhalation, but that it may be inflated under loose areas of the skin with marked beneficial results, a London physician having used this method in his last two hundred cases with remarkably speedy healing. As Dr. McMechan is on his way to attend the medical conference at Sydney, it will be of interest to note what he has to say on this subject there, also how other members of the profession will deal with this interesting and important development of anaesthetics.