Anesthesia

Ether apparatus (3)

CPA  Lenormand, Orleans, around 1910

In 1824, the English surgeon Henry Hill HICKMAN (1800-1830) published a report of his painless operations in mice and young dogs, which he had previously anesthetized using carbonated, low-oxygen air. Both the British "Royal Medical Society" and the French "Académie Royale de Médicine", which he called, were hesitant and finally dismissive of his proposals for inhalation anesthesia underpinned by animal experiments - no one recognized the scope of the experiments and the possible benefits for the patients. Some members of this academy even described the attempt of pain-stuning a human being as a violation of the divine providence of pain and as an offense against morality.

In the clinic, not asphyxiation using carbon dioxide and oxygen deprivation has proven, but the supply of anesthetic gases.

The upper picture shows one of the operating theaters of the old "Hôtel Dieu" of Orléans - the Salle d'opération Froberville. The photographers have the sisters of the "Hôtel Dieu" put their latest achievement in front of the picture: an ethereal anesthetic ball (lower half of the picture)! Otherwise, the operating room is rather Spartan.

Huet de FROBERVILLE (*1752 in Romorantin, died 1838), was a member of the Académie of Orléans, "Secrétaire perpétuel" of the "Académie des belles-lettres, sciences et arts de La Rochelle". He wrote:
Essai sur la Topographie d 'Olivet, published in the Société Royale de Physique, d'Histoire Naturelle et des Arts d'Orleans, Orléans, Couret de Villeneuve, Paris, Cuchet, 1784. in-8. IV. 93pp. 1f. IV.