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SIR JAMES YOUNG SIMPSON, 1ST BARONET (1811-1870)
Anaesthesia, or the Employment of Chloroform and Ether in Surgery, Midwifery, etc. Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakiston, 1849 -- THE AUTHOR'S MOCK-UP OF THE VOLUME, with autograph manuscript title-page 'Essays on Artificial Anaesthesia &c. &c. By James Y. Simpson. M.D. Professor of Midwifery in the Univ: of Edinburgh. Edinburgh 1848.' 8° (216 x 134mm). A bound volume of 13 pamphlets, offprints and extracts from journals by Simpson, one folded to format, with manuscript half-title 'On Anaesthesia', title, part-title, and partial index in Simpson's hand. (Occasional light spotting or browning, short tears on final item.) Contemporary half calf by W.F. Watson, Edinburgh, speckled edges (extremities rubbed causing losses, hinges split, rebacked). Provenance: Sir J.Y. Simpson (bookplate and signature on endpapers, inscription 'Belongs to J.Y. Simpson. Not to be lent' on one offprint, shelfmark) -- Hubert L. Simpson (bookplate).
A MOCK-UP ANNOTATED BY SIMPSON FOR HIS ANAESTHESIA, CONTAINING OFFPRINTS OF HIS MAJOR EARLY PAPERS ON THE SUBJECT, FROM HIS LIBRARY. Simpson was an enthusiastic and early advocate of surgical anaesthesia: the first use of ether as an anaesthetic in a major centre of medicine in Britain was at University College Hospital, London, on 21 December 1846, and Simpson, inspired by accounts of this, used it successfully some two months later in a labour complicated by a deformation of the pelvis. He continued to use ether regularly throughout 1847 (developing an inhaler for its administration), but became dissatisfied with it, and sought a more portable and efficient anaesthetic. On 4 November 1847 Simpson and two colleagues experimented with chloroform; in a very brief time it rendered the three men unconscious. The new anaesthetic was first used on an obstetric case on 8 November 1847 and was publicly demonstrated in a surgical context on 10 November at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. As a convinced and enthusiastic proponent of the benefits of anaesthesia, Simpson published much on the subject, seeking both to popularise the use of anaesthetic agents by fellow physicians and to counter attacks by the clergy and others; one such critic decried chloroform as 'a decoy of Satan, apparently offering itself to bless woman; but, in the end ... it will harden society and rob God of the deep earnest cries, which arise in time of trouble for help' (quoted by Simpson in his letter to Protheroe Smith, 8 July 1848).
The present volume is a collection of Simpson's earliest pamphlets and articles on anaesthesia, which he has annotated to form a mock-up of his Anaesthesia -- a collection of papers dating from April 1847 to February 1849 which were published in Philadelphia in 1849, but never published in book form in Britain. The 13 papers here correspond closely to the text of Anaesthesia, and comprise, in the order of binding: (i) and (ii) 'Etherization in Surgery', parts I-II, extracted from The Monthly Journal of Medical Science, nos LXXXI, no. 15 and LXXXIII, no. 17, new series, September 1847 and November 1847; (iii) Anaesthesia in Surgery: Does it Increase or Decrease the Mortality Attendant upon Surgical Operations?, offprint from: The Monthly Journal of Medical Science, April 1848. Edinburgh: Sutherland and Knox, 1848; (iv) Notes on the Inhalation of Sulphuric Ether in the Practice of Midwifery, offprint from: The Monthly Journal of Medical Science, March 1847. Edinburgh: Sutherland and Knox, 1847; (v) Remarks on the Superinduction of Anaesthesia in Natural and Morbid Parturition. Edinburgh and London: Sutherland and Knox and Samuel Highley, 1848. Second thousand; (vi) 'Report on the Early History and Progress of Anaesthetic Midwifery', extracted from: The Monthly Journal of Medical Science, no XCIV, no. 28, new series, October 1848; (vii) Answer to Religious Objections Advanced Against the Employment of Anaesthetic Agents in Midwifery and Surgery. Edinburgh and London: Sutherland and Knox and Samuel Highley, 1848. Second thousand; (viii) Simpson's 'Appendix', extracted from Protheroe Smith's Scriptural Authority for the Mitigation of the Pains of Labour, by Chloroform and other Anaesthetic Agents (London: S. Highley, 1848); (ix) Historical Researches Regarding the Superinduction of Insensibility to Pain in Surgical Operations; and Announcement of a New Anaesthetic Agent, offprint from: The Monthly Journal of Medical Science, December 1847; (x) Account of a New Anaesthetic Agent as a Substitute for Sulphuric Ether in Surgery and Midwifery. Edinburgh and London: Sutherland and Knox and Samuel Highley, 1848. Fourth thousand; (xi) Anaesthetic and Other Therapeutic Properties of Chloroform, offprint from The Monthly Journal of Medical Science, December 1847 [?last 4 leaves separated and forming item ix]; (xii) Notes of the Anaesthetic Effects of Chloride of Hydrocarbon, Nitrate of Ethyle, Benzin and Bisulphuret of Carbon, offprint from: The Edinburgh Monthly Journal of Medical Science, April 1848. Edinburgh: Sutherland and Knox, 1848; (xiii) Local Anaesthesia: Notes on its Artificial Production by Chloroform, &c. in the Lower Animals and in Man, offprint from: The Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal, 12 July 1848. Worcester: Deighton & Co, 1848.
Comparison with the published work demonstrates that the final book followed this sequence with two exceptions: no. vi followed no. vii, to form part II, chapters v-x; part IV, chapter iv 'Answer to the Objections to Anaesthesia in Midwifery, Adduced by Professor Meigs of Philadelphia' (which bears the publisher's notice that 'The letter to Dr Meigs ... was received from Dr Simpson too late to take its proper place ... and now forms the concluding chapter of the work'), is not present here. Four blank bifolia have been bound into the volume, which appear to indicate Simpson's original divisions into parts (in the published book there were four, headed 'Anaesthesia in Surgery'; 'Anaesthesia in Midwifery'; 'On the Nature and Powers of Various Anaesthetic Agents'; 'Local Anaesthesia'). The first division falls between iii and iv (as it does in the published work), but the second and third are bound before and after ix (in the published work the third part begins with ix), and the final division occurs before xii, indicating that Simpson revised the structure of the work while editing it. The author has scored through the text of articles following his in papers i and ii and inserted manuscript chapter numbers from i to iii in i; however his work on this volume ceases after that (which is reflected in the manuscript index which contains entries for part I, chapters i-iii only). It seems possible therefore, that Simpson realised that the sequence of papers in this volume was unsatisfactory, and thus discarded it as unsuitable for use as a mock-up. For the published work, cf.: Eimas Heirs 1766; Norman 1946; Waller 8959.
Anaesthesia, or the Employment of Chloroform and Ether in Surgery, Midwifery, etc. Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakiston, 1849 -- THE AUTHOR'S MOCK-UP OF THE VOLUME, with autograph manuscript title-page 'Essays on Artificial Anaesthesia &c. &c. By James Y. Simpson. M.D. Professor of Midwifery in the Univ: of Edinburgh. Edinburgh 1848.' 8° (216 x 134mm). A bound volume of 13 pamphlets, offprints and extracts from journals by Simpson, one folded to format, with manuscript half-title 'On Anaesthesia', title, part-title, and partial index in Simpson's hand. (Occasional light spotting or browning, short tears on final item.) Contemporary half calf by W.F. Watson, Edinburgh, speckled edges (extremities rubbed causing losses, hinges split, rebacked). Provenance: Sir J.Y. Simpson (bookplate and signature on endpapers, inscription 'Belongs to J.Y. Simpson. Not to be lent' on one offprint, shelfmark) -- Hubert L. Simpson (bookplate).
A MOCK-UP ANNOTATED BY SIMPSON FOR HIS ANAESTHESIA, CONTAINING OFFPRINTS OF HIS MAJOR EARLY PAPERS ON THE SUBJECT, FROM HIS LIBRARY. Simpson was an enthusiastic and early advocate of surgical anaesthesia: the first use of ether as an anaesthetic in a major centre of medicine in Britain was at University College Hospital, London, on 21 December 1846, and Simpson, inspired by accounts of this, used it successfully some two months later in a labour complicated by a deformation of the pelvis. He continued to use ether regularly throughout 1847 (developing an inhaler for its administration), but became dissatisfied with it, and sought a more portable and efficient anaesthetic. On 4 November 1847 Simpson and two colleagues experimented with chloroform; in a very brief time it rendered the three men unconscious. The new anaesthetic was first used on an obstetric case on 8 November 1847 and was publicly demonstrated in a surgical context on 10 November at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. As a convinced and enthusiastic proponent of the benefits of anaesthesia, Simpson published much on the subject, seeking both to popularise the use of anaesthetic agents by fellow physicians and to counter attacks by the clergy and others; one such critic decried chloroform as 'a decoy of Satan, apparently offering itself to bless woman; but, in the end ... it will harden society and rob God of the deep earnest cries, which arise in time of trouble for help' (quoted by Simpson in his letter to Protheroe Smith, 8 July 1848).
The present volume is a collection of Simpson's earliest pamphlets and articles on anaesthesia, which he has annotated to form a mock-up of his Anaesthesia -- a collection of papers dating from April 1847 to February 1849 which were published in Philadelphia in 1849, but never published in book form in Britain. The 13 papers here correspond closely to the text of Anaesthesia, and comprise, in the order of binding: (i) and (ii) 'Etherization in Surgery', parts I-II, extracted from The Monthly Journal of Medical Science, nos LXXXI, no. 15 and LXXXIII, no. 17, new series, September 1847 and November 1847; (iii) Anaesthesia in Surgery: Does it Increase or Decrease the Mortality Attendant upon Surgical Operations?, offprint from: The Monthly Journal of Medical Science, April 1848. Edinburgh: Sutherland and Knox, 1848; (iv) Notes on the Inhalation of Sulphuric Ether in the Practice of Midwifery, offprint from: The Monthly Journal of Medical Science, March 1847. Edinburgh: Sutherland and Knox, 1847; (v) Remarks on the Superinduction of Anaesthesia in Natural and Morbid Parturition. Edinburgh and London: Sutherland and Knox and Samuel Highley, 1848. Second thousand; (vi) 'Report on the Early History and Progress of Anaesthetic Midwifery', extracted from: The Monthly Journal of Medical Science, no XCIV, no. 28, new series, October 1848; (vii) Answer to Religious Objections Advanced Against the Employment of Anaesthetic Agents in Midwifery and Surgery. Edinburgh and London: Sutherland and Knox and Samuel Highley, 1848. Second thousand; (viii) Simpson's 'Appendix', extracted from Protheroe Smith's Scriptural Authority for the Mitigation of the Pains of Labour, by Chloroform and other Anaesthetic Agents (London: S. Highley, 1848); (ix) Historical Researches Regarding the Superinduction of Insensibility to Pain in Surgical Operations; and Announcement of a New Anaesthetic Agent, offprint from: The Monthly Journal of Medical Science, December 1847; (x) Account of a New Anaesthetic Agent as a Substitute for Sulphuric Ether in Surgery and Midwifery. Edinburgh and London: Sutherland and Knox and Samuel Highley, 1848. Fourth thousand; (xi) Anaesthetic and Other Therapeutic Properties of Chloroform, offprint from The Monthly Journal of Medical Science, December 1847 [?last 4 leaves separated and forming item ix]; (xii) Notes of the Anaesthetic Effects of Chloride of Hydrocarbon, Nitrate of Ethyle, Benzin and Bisulphuret of Carbon, offprint from: The Edinburgh Monthly Journal of Medical Science, April 1848. Edinburgh: Sutherland and Knox, 1848; (xiii) Local Anaesthesia: Notes on its Artificial Production by Chloroform, &c. in the Lower Animals and in Man, offprint from: The Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal, 12 July 1848. Worcester: Deighton & Co, 1848.
Comparison with the published work demonstrates that the final book followed this sequence with two exceptions: no. vi followed no. vii, to form part II, chapters v-x; part IV, chapter iv 'Answer to the Objections to Anaesthesia in Midwifery, Adduced by Professor Meigs of Philadelphia' (which bears the publisher's notice that 'The letter to Dr Meigs ... was received from Dr Simpson too late to take its proper place ... and now forms the concluding chapter of the work'), is not present here. Four blank bifolia have been bound into the volume, which appear to indicate Simpson's original divisions into parts (in the published book there were four, headed 'Anaesthesia in Surgery'; 'Anaesthesia in Midwifery'; 'On the Nature and Powers of Various Anaesthetic Agents'; 'Local Anaesthesia'). The first division falls between iii and iv (as it does in the published work), but the second and third are bound before and after ix (in the published work the third part begins with ix), and the final division occurs before xii, indicating that Simpson revised the structure of the work while editing it. The author has scored through the text of articles following his in papers i and ii and inserted manuscript chapter numbers from i to iii in i; however his work on this volume ceases after that (which is reflected in the manuscript index which contains entries for part I, chapters i-iii only). It seems possible therefore, that Simpson realised that the sequence of papers in this volume was unsatisfactory, and thus discarded it as unsuitable for use as a mock-up. For the published work, cf.: Eimas Heirs 1766; Norman 1946; Waller 8959.
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