Cases of inhalation of ether in labor.

  • Channing, Walter, 1786-1876.
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cases of inhalation of ether in labor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    it when the circumstances of cases demand, or au- thorize its use, and with the caution which such a duty involves; and that doubt, which, in the instan- ces in which it now exists seems most authoritative, may pass away, and the authority come to be on the side of the remedy of pain. Shall ether be used in all cases, or do you mean so to use it ? are questions which are frequently ask- ed. For myself, I answer no. Cases of labor have come under my care since this pamphlet was publish- ed, in which the process was allowed to proceed with- out the agency of ether. Two of them were cases of consultation, and were both first labors, and of nearly forty hours continuance. I saw no reason for inter- fering. One of the cases was rapidly advancing, and the other was aided by ergot. The pains were not so severe as to lead the patients to ask for means which might make them less; or incline them to use the means when named. The time will very probably come when the question propounded in the begin- ning of this paragraph will get a different answer. A proper use of our present knowledge authorizes the one given above. Since writing the above a case has come under my observation of the application of ether, which may not be out of place in this portion of this pamphlet, though not belonging to its proper subject. I give it as an individual case. It is a single instance of the use of ether in a disease in which I have not heard that it has been before used. Miss , aged 26, was seized on Sunday, July 4th, 1847, with very severe pain about the root of an in- cisor tooth, which had been cut off seven years before, and to which a tooth had been attached by a pivot.