ANESTHETICS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XL, Issue 9029, 11 March 1891, Page 4

ANESTHETICS.

A writer in the Bedford Observer Budget says :—": — " My personal interest in the use and nature of anaesthetics has been greatly stimulated by recent personal observation, and I feel devoutly thankful that I live in an age when the surgeon's knife is no longer the instrument of terror that it once was, and when valuable lives may be saved or prolonged without the endurance of cruel pain from which the stoutest heart would naturally shrink. Anaesthesia as a merciful agent in surgery was, I believe, first tried in America, and gre..t was the excitement on this side the Atlantic when the question was first mooted in English hospitals. Ether was the original agent thus employed, but in the year 1847 Dr. Simpson, of Edinburgh began to make experiments onhimself and his friends as to the effects of other respirable gases, and I have lately read a curious and most interesting account in an old pamphlet of tbe primary inhalation of chloroform in order to test its powers by Dr. — afterwards Sir James — Simpson and bis friends, Dr. Matthews Duncan and Dr. Keith, in Dr. Simpson's own diningroom in Edinburgh one day in November, 1847. An account of the effects of the Jiew fluid on the behaviour of these learned professors is given very humorously, and. the peculiar symptoms observed in each most vividly described, so that the birth of this blessed factor in the banishment of pain from humanity seems to have taken place amid much hilarity, and great surprise, for as yet but little was known of its consequences. AU honour to the men who spared neither trouble nor money in making the original discovery, and to those who are still devoting energy and time to the perfecting of their suggestions and inventions."

Chief of Police: "Have you attended to that burglary at Mr. Goodman's house?" Detective: "Yes; been at work on it all day. ' " What is your con^ elusion ?" " That a robbery has been committed." "Very well. Now go to work on these other cases." De Jinks : " Here's a nice cigar. I picked it out especially for you. Merritt: "Thanks. Pd rather take the one you picked out for yourself" Wolfe's Schnapps. Oply those who never used genuine'articlo are imposed upon To -Darken Grey Hair. — Lockyer's Sulphur Hair Restorer ia the quickest, best, safest; costs less, effects more than any other The color produced is most natural. Lookyor's Sulphur ia the only English Hair Restorer universally aold— Advt Neither triokery nor competition has been able to affect the repuMion pf