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It is nevertheless true, that ether and chloroform have been 

 largely employed in the hosptials of this country and of Europe, and 

 in other situations where surgery is practised upon an extensive 

 scale, and that many thousands of persons have been subjected to 

 their influence without apparent injury. In the St. Bartholo- 

 mew's Hospital alone, we are informed by a recent letter from 

 Mr. Lawrence to Dr. John C. Warren, of Boston, that they 

 have been used between two and three thousands times without 

 injury or accident ; while the statistics of several large institutions 

 where etherization has been extensively practiced, from the period 

 of its first introduction, would seem to indicate at least as favourable 

 a termination of the large operations involving life, as at any pre- 

 vious period. In the late paper of Professor Simpson, before referred 

 to, it is stated that, " out of above 300 cases of the larger amputa- 

 tions performed during the current year, upon patients in an ether- 

 ized or anaesthetic state, and which I have collected from different 

 hospitals in Great Britain, Ireland and France, a smaller proportion 

 died than formerly used to perish in the same hospitals, under the 

 same operations without etherization." The statistics upon which 

 this assertion is founded, so far as it relates to amputation of the 

 thigh, (one of the most severe of the large operations,) will be found 

 in the paper of Dr. Simpson, pp. 14 and 15. (American edition.) 



A list of all the operations performed in the hospitals of Paris 

 upon etherized patients up to the 1st of March, 1847, was collected 

 by Dr. Yandell, of Kentucky, at that time residing there ; and pub- 

 lished in the Western Journal of Medicine and Surgery, at Louis- 

 ville, in June of the same year, which go to confirm the assertion of 

 Professor Simpson in reference to this point. M. Burguieres, a 

 French writer, made a similar investigation, and has published a 

 table of 211 operations performed in the French hospitals, which 

 would also show a diminished mortality, in the classes of operations 

 where the anaesthetic state was induced. This table will be found 

 in Rankings Abstract for 1847. 



The reports of many eminent surgeons, who have used these 

 agents extensively, are equally favourable, and some of these gentle- 

 men believe that not only do they possess the power of prevent- 

 ing pain, but of increasing the chances of life after large operations. 



With a view of collecting the results of operations performed 

 upon persons in an anossthetic state in the hospitals of this country 

 within the past year, your committee addressed letters to gentle- 

 men connected with these institutions in several of the larger cities 

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