Opposition to anaesthetics

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  • Created by: emlulah
  • Created on: 09-12-13 19:44

Opposition to anaesthetics

Causes

  • Surgeons were inexperienced and didn't want change
  • Religion
  • Army
  • Chloroform could be lethal and bad early experiments
  • Side effects
  • Doctors would have complete control

Effects

  • Anaesthetics were new and doctors were unsure
  • Pain was a punishment from God - childbirth
  • Thought it would make soldiers 'soft'
  • Hannah Green and Wells unsuccessful demo of N.oxide
  • Ether caused explosions, and irritation to eyes and lungs
  • Patients could not speak out, weren't completely trusted

Overall summary

Queen Victoria gave birth to her 8th child using chloroform and the Crimean war reduced some of the opposition to choroform. Also, John Snow came up with the chloroform inhaler which made chloroform much safer to get correct dosage (later found that chloroform caused liver damage in long term use).

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