POPULAR DISCOVERIES IN PHYSIOLOGY. 147 



and unwholesome lives, enable them to exert their 

 disease-creating powers. 



A brief notice must also be given of two discoveries in 

 practical physiology, which have perhaps done more to 

 benefit mankind than those great mechanical inventions 

 and philosophical theories which receive more general 

 admiration. These are, the use of anaesthetics in sur- 

 gical operations, and the antiseptic treatment of wounds. 



Anaesthetics were first used in dentistry in 1846, the 

 agent being ether ; while chloroform, for more severe sur- 

 gical operations, was adopted in 1848; and though their 

 primary effect is only to abolish pain, they get rid of so 

 much nervous irritation as greatly to aid in the subse- 

 quent recovery. The use of anaesthetics thus renders it 

 possible for many operations to be safely performed 

 which, without it, would endanger life by mere shock to 

 the system; while to the operating surgeon it gives con- 

 fidence, and enables him to work more deliberately and 

 carefully from the knowledge that the longer time occu- 

 pied will not increase the suffering of the patient or ren- 

 der his recovery less probable. Mtrous-oxide gas is 

 now chiefly used in dentistry or very short operations, 

 sulphuric ether for those of moderate length, while chlo- 

 roform is usually employed in all the more severe cases, 

 since the patient can by its use be kept in a state of in- 

 sensibility for an hour or even longer. There is, how- 

 ever, some danger in its use to persons with weak heart 

 or of great nervous sensibility, and the patient in such 

 cases may die from the effects of the anaesthetic alone. 1 



'The Hyderabad Chloroform Commission, which in 1889 

 thoroughly investigated the causes of death under chloroform, 

 has proved that all such deaths are preventible, if a different mode of 



