"L: "Original Papers. Surgical operations performed during insensibility, produced by the inhalation of sulphuric ether"; editorial comment. "

View this document as a PDF

PDF courtesy of Elsevier, via the Health Sciences Library, Emory University.

Transcription pending.

Contents of the PDF:

[1. Dr. Francis Boott's introductory letter to the Editor, including an extract from Dr. Henry Bigelow's letter, dated 28 November 1846, that accompanied a copy of his paper.]

[2. Henry Bigelow's paper, first read at the american Academy of Arts and Sciences on 3 November 1846, then again at the Boston Society of Medical Improvement on 9 November, and published in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, which the Lancet reprinted.]

[3. Boott's letter to the editor from 21 December 1846 in which he describes James Robinson's use of ether to extract molar from Miss Lonsdale.]

[4. Boott's letter to the editor on the following day, containing a note from Robert Liston, dated 21 December, about his successful amputation using ether.]

[5. James A. Dorr's letter to the editor, dated 28 December 1846, that he is representing the American inventors in their claims to have patented the process of ether inhalation, and that Liston infringed on the rights of the inventors.]

[6. Editorial that the journal finds news of ether inhalation a promising development and that it will publish ongoing information about future practice, hopes that there is finally an end to "mesmeric quackery," mentions Liston's operation in which Squire's apparatus was employed, and mentions the claim that the process has been patented.]