Septembek 25, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



411 



compouDds to fluoresce, and emit a faint 

 light plainly visible in the dark ; and if they 

 are made to fall upon a translucent screen 

 impregnated with such a salt, it becomes 

 beautifully illuminated. If a part of the 

 human body is interposed between the screen 

 and the source of the rays, the bones and 

 other structures are thrown in shadow upon 

 it, and thus a diagnosis can be made with- 

 out the delay involved in taking a photo- 

 graph. It was in fact in this way that Dr. 

 Macintyre first detected the coin in the 

 boy's gullet. Mr. Herbert Jackson, of King's 

 College, London, early distinguished him- 

 self in this branch of the subject. There is 

 no reason to suppose that the limits of the 

 capabilities of the rays in this way have yet 

 been reached. By virtue of the greater 

 density of the heart than the adjacent lungs, 

 with their contained air, the form and di- 

 mensions of that organ in the living body 

 may be displayed on the fluorescent screen, 

 and even its movements have been lately 

 seen by several different observers. 



Such important applications of the new 

 rays to medical practice have strongly at- 

 tracted the interest of the public to them, 

 and I venture to think that they have even 

 served to stimulate the investigations of 

 physicists. The eminent Professor of Physics 

 in the University College of this city (Prof. 

 L/odge) was one of the first to make such 

 practical applications, and I was able to 

 show to the Poyal Society at a very early 

 period a photograph, which he had the kind- 

 ness to send me, of a bullet embedded in 

 the hand. His interest in the medical as- 

 pect of the subject remains unabated, and 

 at the same time he has been one of the 

 most distinguished investigators of its 

 purely physical side. 



There is another way in which the Eont- 

 gen rays connect themselves with physi- 

 ology, and may possibly influence medicine. 

 It is found that if the skin is long exposed 

 to their action it becomes very much irri- 



tated, afiected with a sort of aggravated sun- 

 burning. This suggests the idea that the 

 transmission of the rays through the human 

 body may be not altogether a matter of in- 

 difference to internal organs, but may, by 

 long-continued action, produce, according 

 to the condition of the part concerned, in- 

 jurious irritation of salutary stimulation. 



This is the jubilee of Anaesthesia in sur- 

 gery. That priceless blessing to mankind 

 came from America. It had, indeed, been 

 foreshadowed in the first year of this cen- 

 tury by Humphry Davy, who, having found! 

 a toothache from which he was suffering 

 relieved as he inhaled laughing gas (nitrous- 

 oxide), threw out the suggestion that it 

 might perhaps be used for preventing pain 

 in surgical operations. But it was not till, 

 on September 30, 1846, Dr. W. T. G. Mor- 

 ton, of Boston, after a series of experiments 

 upon himself and the lower animals, ex- 

 tracted a tooth painlessly from a patient 

 whom he had caused to inhale the vapor 

 of sulphuric ether, that the idea was fully 

 realized. He soon afterwards publicly ex- 

 hibited his method at the Massachusetts 

 General Hospital, and after that event the 

 great discovery spread rapidly over the civ- 

 ilized world. I witnessed the first opera- 

 tion in England under ether. It was per- 

 formed by Eobert Liston in University Col- 

 lege Hospital, and it was a complete suc- 

 cess. Soon afterwards I saw the same great 

 surgeon amputate the thigh as painlessly, 

 with less complicated aniesthetic apparatus, 

 by aid of another agent, chloroform, which 

 was being powerfully advocated as a sub- 

 stitute for ether by Dr. (afterwards Sir 

 James Y.) Simpson, who also had the great 

 merit of showing that confinements could 

 be conducted painlessly, yet safely, under 

 its influence. These two agents still hold 

 the field as general anaesthetics for protracted 

 operations, although the gas originally sug- 

 gested by Davy, in consequence of its rapid 

 action and other advantages, has taken their 



