Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/833

Rh A N A A N 789 under this title as if just emerged from the sea, and in the act of wringing her tresses. This was the subject of a painting by Apelles, one of the most celebrated pictures of antiquity, the conception having been, it was said, sug gested to him by seeing Phryne bathing. This painting belonged first to the people of Cos, from whom it was taken to Rome by Augustus in part payment of tribute levied by him. By the time of Nero it had become almost entirely ruined by decay. ANADYR, the name of a gulf and of a river in the north-east of Siberia. The gulf extends from Cape Tchutotskoi, on the north, to Cape St Thadeus, on the south, forming part of the Behring Sea ; while the river, taking its rise from a lake in the Stanovoi mountains, called Ivashki or Ivachno, about 67 N. lat., and 173 E. long., flows through the Tchutchee country, at first to the west and then to the east, entering the gulf of Anadyrsk- aia, a branch of the gulf of Anadyr, after a course of about 600 miles. Anadyrsk is the only town on its banks, and the country through which it passes is thinly popu lated, barren, and desolate. For nine months of the year the ground is covered with snow, and there is not sufficient pasturage for cattle. Reindeer, upon which the inhabit ants feed, are found in considerable numbers. ANAESTHESIA (a privative, cucr^o-is, sensation), a term in medicine used to describe a state of insensibility to external impressions, either as the result of disease or as induced artificially by the employment of certain sub stances known as anaesthetics. In diseases of the brain or spinal cord anaesthesia is an occasional symptom, but in such cases it is usually limited in extent, involving a limb or a definite area of the surface of the body. Complete anaesthesia has been observed in persons who were in a state of catalepsy or trance. The artificial induction of anesthesia by the use of drugs or the inhalation of vapours is a subject of great interest, both historically and from its practical application to the relief of suffering and the treatment of disease. Although it is mainly owing to the researches of distin guished chemists and physicians of the present century that the employment of anaesthesia has come to occupy a foremost place among remedies, there is abundant evidence to show that it is a practice of great antiquity. Besides the mention by Homer of the anaesthetic effects of nepenthe, and the reference by Herodotus to the practice of the Scythians of inhaling the vapours of a certain kind of hemp to produce intoxication, the employment of anaesthetics in surgery by the use of mandragora is par ticularly alluded to by Dioscorides and Pliny. It also appears, from an old Chinese manuscript laid before the French Academy by M. Julien, that a physician named Hoa-tho, who lived in the 3d century, gave his patients a preparation of hemp, whereby they were rendered in sensible during the performance of surgical operations. Mandragora was extensively used as an anaesthetic by Hugo de Lucca, who practised in the 13th century. The soporific effects of mandrake are alluded to by Shake speare, who also makes frequent mention of anaesthetising draughts, the composition of which is not specified. In the Medical Gazette, vol. xii. p. 515, Dr Sylvester, quoting from a German work by Meissner, published in 1782, mentions the case of Augustus, king of Poland, who underwent amputation while rendered insensible by a narcotic. But the practice of anaesthesia had never become general, and surgeons appear to have usually regarded it with disfavour. When, towards the close of last century, the brilliant discoveries of Priestley gave an impetus to chemical research, the properties of gases and vapours began to be more closely investigated, and the belief was then, entertained that many of them would become of great medicinal value. In 1800, Sir Humphrey Davy, experimenting on nitrous oxide gas, discovered its anaesthetic properties, and described the effects it had on himself when inhaled, with the view of relieving local pain. He suggested its employment in surgery in the fol lowing words : &quot; As nitrous oxide, in its extensive opera tion, seems capable of destroying physical pain, it may probably be used with advantage in surgical operations in which no great effusion of blood takes place.&quot; His sug gestion, however, remained unheeded for nearly half a century. The inhalation of sulphuric ether for the relief of asthma and other lung affections had been employed by Dr Pearson, of Birmingham, as early as 1785 ; and in 1805 Dr Warren, of Boston, U.S., used this treatment in the later stages of pulmonary consumption. In 1818 Faraday showed that the inhalation of the vapour of sulphuric ether produced anaesthetic effects similar to those of nitrous oxide gas ; and this property of ether was also shown by the American physicians, Godman (1822), Jackson (1833), Wood and Bache (1834). These observations, however, appear to have been re garded in the light of mere scientific curiosities and sub jects for lecture-room experiment, rather than as facts capable of being applied practically in the treatment of disease, till December 1844, when Dr Horace Wells, a dentist of Hartford, Connecticut, underwent in his own person the operation of tooth extraction while rendered insensible by nitrous oxide gas. Satisfied, from further experience, that teeth could be extracted in this way without pain, Dr Wells proposed to establish the practice of painless dentistry under the influence of the gas; but in consequence of an unfortunate failure in an experiment at Boston, he abandoned the project. On 30th September 1846, Dr Morton, a dentist of Boston, employed the vapour of sulphuric ether to procure general anaesthesia in a case of tooth extraction, and thereafter administered it in cases requiring surgical operation with complete success. This great achievement marked a new era in surgery. Operations were performed in America in nume rous instances under ether inhalation, the result being only to establish more firmly its value as a successful anaesthetic. The news of the discovery reached England on 17th December 1846. On 19th December, Mr Robinson, a dentist in London, and on the 21st, Mr Liston, the emi nent surgeon, operated on patients anaesthetised by ether ; and the practice soon became general both in Great Britain and on the Continent. The late Sir James Y. Simpson, of Edinburgh, was the first to apply anaesthesia by ether in midwifery practice. This he did on 19th January 1847, and he subsequently employed ether inhalation in numerous cases of both easy and difficult parturition, an account of which he published, containing much important information. The results of his trials showed that while the anaesthesia annulled the conscious sufferings of the patient, it in no way interfered with the muscular contractions of the uterus and the pro gress of the labour, and that it did not injuriously affect the child. These observations excited great interest in the medical world, and led to the extensive employment of ether inhala tion till November 1847, when Simpson announced his discovery of the anaesthetic properties of chloroform (the trial of which had been suggested to him by Mr Waldie, a chemist of Liverpool), and proposed it as a substitute for sulphuric ether. So convincingly did he demonstrate the great advantages of chloroform, that this substance speedily superseded the use of ether as an anaesthetic, and continues to the present time probably the most widely-used of all the agents employed in medicine for the relief of human suffering.