ANAESTHETICS. 21 
part of the king’s foot without his perceiving what was taking 
place. 
In 1784, James Moore, surgeon at St. George’s Hospital, 
London, introduced a plan for lessening pain during operations 
by compressing the nerves proceeding to the part. 
Artificial somnambulism, (or Mesmerism), of which I have 
spoken before, is said to have been used as an anaesthetic agent 
for the first time in India in the year 1845. Since then it has 
been applied with considerable success in Europe and America ; 
being first adopted in America, then in France, and afterwards 
in England. Dr. Esdail, of Perth, who has written a pamphlet 
upon the subject, brings forward 261 personal observations of 
surgical cases performed without pain during mesmeric sleep. 
The art of mesmerizing often exhausts the strength of the 
person who induces this state of insensibility in the patient ; 
some patients requiring only three-quarters of an hour, others 
as much as twenty-four hours’ mesmerizing before falling into 
the somnambulistic state. The process called Hypnotism, dis- 
covered by the late Dr. Braid of Manchester, appears much 
simpler than the ordinary method of mesmerizing by the eyes, 
by passes, and I shall have occasion to refer to it again. 
Since the discovery of ether and chloroform, the use of 
mesmerism to produce anaesthesia appears to be almost aban- 
doned; not so, however, with hypnotism, which seems about 
to revive. 
The discovery of the different gases — carbonic acid gas, in 
1756, by Black; oxygen gas, in 1774, by Priestley ; nitrous 
oxide gas, a little later, by the same, &c. &c., gave rise, in 
England,’ to the supposition that they might be useful in the 
treatment of certain diseases, and the system of Pneumatic 
medicine was imagined. This system consisted in causing the 
different kinds of gases to be inhaled by the patients ; it was 
thought that such a treatment would prove very beneficial in 
consumption ( Pthisis ). A medical pneumatic institution was 
accordingly formed at Clifton, near Bristol, by Dr. Beddowes, 
and huge reservoirs of gases were established for the use of the 
sufferers. In the year 1799, Humphry Davy, who had just 
completed his apprenticeship, was appointed the superintendent 
of this establishment. In the summer of 1800, Davy pub- 
lished some researches on the gas called nitrous oxide or 
“ laughing-gas,” and on the effects produced when nitrous 
oxide and other gases are inhaled. He experimented upon 
himself, and found that nitrous oxide relieved him from head- 
ache after a profound fit of intoxication induced purposely by 
drinking a bottle of wine in eight minutes. After many 
similar observations, he came to the conclusion that “as nitrons 
oxide seems capable of destroying physical pain, it may pro- 
