THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD.
Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood in 1619; but we learn from a passage in Longinus (ch. xxii.) that the fact was known two thousand years before. The father of critics, to exemplify and illustrate the use and value of trope in writing, has garbled from the Timæus of Plato a number of sentences descriptive of the anatomy of the human body, where the circulation of the blood is pointed at in terms singularly graphic. The exact extent of professional knowledge attained in the time of the great philosopher is by no means clearly defined. He speaks of the fact, however, not with a view to prove what was contested or chimerical, but avails himself of it to figure the surpassing wisdom of the gods in constructing the human frame.
ANÆSTHESIA.
The use of the vapor of sulphuric ether for the purpose of inducing insensibility to surgical operations was first practically adopted by Dr. Morton, of Boston, in 1846; that of chloroform, by Dr. Simpson, of Edinburgh, in 1847. To this period we must assign the most important epoch in the annals of surgery, and the date of one of the grandest discoveries of science and one of the greatest blessings ever conferred upon humanity.
The idea, however, of saving the human body, by artificial means, from the pains and tortures inflicted by the knife of the surgeon, has been by no means either first broached or first acted upon in recent times. Intense pain is regarded by mankind generally as so serious an evil that it would have been strange indeed if efforts had not been early made to diminish this species of suffering. The use of the juice of the poppy, henbane, mandragora, and other narcotic preparations, to effect this object by their deadening influence, may be traced back till it disappears in the darkness of a remote antiquity.
Intoxicating vapors were also employed, by way of inhalation, to produce the same effects as drugs of this nature introduced into the stomach. This appears from the account given by Herodotus of the practice of the Scythians, several centuries before Christ, of using the vapor of hemp-seed as a means of drunkenness. The known means of stupefaction were very early resorted to in order to counteract pain produced by artificial causes. In executions under the horrible form of crucifixion, soporific mixtures were administered to alleviate the pangs of the victim. The draught of vinegar and gall, or myrrh, offered to the Saviour in his agony, was the ordinary tribute of human sympathy extorted from the bystander by the spectacle of intolerable anguish.
That some lethean anodyne might be found to assuage the torment of surgical operations as they were anciently performed, [cauterizing the cut surfaces, instead of tying the arteries,] was not only a favorite notion, but it had been in some degree, however imperfect, reduced to practice. Pliny the Naturalist, who perished in the eruption of Vesuvius which entombed the city of Herculaneum in the year 79, bears distinct and decided testimony to this fact.
In his description of the plant known as the mandragora or circeius, he says, “It has a soporific power on the faculties of those who drink it. The ordinary potion is half a cup. It is drunk against serpents, and before cuttings and puncturings, lest they should be felt.” (Bibitur et contra serpentes, et ante sectiones, punctionesque, ne sentiantur.)
When he comes to speak of the plant eruca, called by us the rocket, he informs us that its seeds, when drunk, infused in wine, by criminals about to undergo the lash, produce a certain callousness or induration of feeling (duaitiam, quandam contra sensum induere).
Pliny also asserts that the stone Memphitis, powdered and applied in a liniment with vinegar, will stupefy parts to be cut or cauterized, “for it so paralyzes the part that it feels no pain” (nec sentit cruciatum).