UNDER CHLOROFORM. 
19 
to the nostrils of him who is to be operated on until he has 
fallen asleep, and so let the surgery he performed.” The 
success of this method of applying a sleep-producing sponge, as 
detailed above, is disputed by Snow, on grounds which seem 
sufficient, theoretically speaking. He did not, however, put the 
question practically to proof, and it is possible, I think, that a 
sponge prepared in the manner described might contain in its 
porous substance many bodies which could be volatilised by 
heat, and which would, if inhaled, produce sleep. If the in- 
struction had been that the sponge, or portions of the sponge 
were to be burned, and the fumes of the burning substance in- 
haled, the effectiveness of the procedure would have been suffi- 
ciently clear. 
Whatever had been, in their day, the value of any of these 
plans, they died out, and failed altogether to become systematised. 
One mode, the offshoot probably of the mandrake wine system, 
was occasionally followed, and that consisted in administering, 
by the mouth, a dose of opium previous to operation. It was 
probably a dose of this drug which was administered to Augustus, 
king of Poland and Elector of Saxony, as told in Meissner’s 
Skizzen, quoted by Dr. Silvester, sic : — 
“ Augustus, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, suffered 
from a wound in his foot, which threatened to mortify. The 
court medical men were opposed to the operation of amputation ; 
but during sleep, induced by a certain potion surreptitiously 
administered, his favourite surgeon, Weiss, a pupil of Petit, of 
Paris, cut off the decaying parts. The royal patient was dis- 
turbed by the proceeding, and inquired what was being done, 
but on receiving a soothing answer he again fell asleep, and did 
not discover till the following morning, after his usual exa- 
mination, that the operation of amputation had really been 
performed.” 
Bell, in his System of Surgery , published in Edinburgh last 
century, speaks of the practice of administering a large dose of 
opium prior to surgical operations ; but Bell was not favour- 
ably impressed with the practice, because it produced vomiting ; 
and his opinion would appear to have been pretty generally 
shared. 
The history of the systems of removing pain by causing 
general insensibility of body and unconsciousness, is, I think, 
fairly exhausted in the above recitals, that is, up to our own 
time. But it must not be omitted, that various local methods 
for removing pain were also devised of old : some of these are 
deserving of remark. I notice again, after Snow, a receipt of 
Theodoric from Master Hugo for this purpose. Antimony, 
quicksilver, soap, quick-lime, and a little arsenic are to be 
sublimed together, says the Dominus Hugo, and a portion of 
