THE INFLUENCE OF ANESTHESIA UPON 
MEDICAL SCIENCE 
BY 
WILLIAM H. WELCH, M.D. 
BALTIMORE 
Reprinted from the Boston Medical emd Surgicalfmcrmat' 
of October 22. 1806 
BOSTON 
DAMRELL & UPHAM, PUBLISHERS 
283 Washington Street 
1896 3. J. PARKHIIL A CO., PRINTERS 
BOSTON THE INFLUENCE OF ANESTHESIA UPON 
MEDICAL SCIENCE.1 
BY WILLIAM H. WELCH, M.D., BALTIMORE. 
Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Board of Trustees 
and of the Medical Staff of the Massachusetts Gen- 
eral Hospital, Ladies and Gentlemen: — Five months 
ago was celebrated the centennial anniversary of 
that grand discovery by Jenner which brought under 
subjection the most prevalent and horrible scourge 
of former centuries. To-day we have assembled 
in this famous hospital on the very spot, made mem- 
orable for all time, where fifty years ago William 
Morton first demonstrated to the world the art of 
surgical anesthesia, the happiest gift ever conferred 
upon mankind by medical science or art. We may 
add to vaccination and anesthesia the more recent in- 
troduction of antisepsis by Lister; and we can truth- 
fully say that all the previous centuries can show no 
achievement of the art of the physician or surgeon 
comparable in beneficence to any one of these triumphs 
of the last hundred years. 
It is in consequence of their enduring utility and 
benefit to humanity that these discoveries, which have 
led to the mastery over a pestilence, the annulment of 
pain and the safe healing of wounds, merit the everlast- 
ing gratitude of the world. But it is fitting on such a 
commemorative occasion as this, that, while these 
practical aspects receive their due consideration, we 
forget not the debt which these great discoveries owe 
1 Remarks made October 16, 1896, at the Commemoration of the 
Fiftieth Anniversary of the First Public Demonstration of Surgical 
Anesthesia at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, 2 
to science nor the debt which science owes to them. 
It is, therefore, most appropriate that those who ar- 
ranged the programme to commemorate this fiftieth 
anniversary of the first public demonstration of surgi- 
cal anesthesia should have chosen as one of the themes 
to be here presented, “ The Influence of Anesthesia 
upon Medical Science.” Their wisdom I am sure 
was less conspicuously manifested in their selection of 
the medium for the presentation of this subject, highly 
as I esteem the honor of being invited to speak upon 
this occasion. 
In the limited time allotted to an individual speaker 
I cannot hope to do more than to present in outline 
some of the salient aspects of my theme. 
I shall not attempt to trace the history of the dis- 
covery of surgical anesthesia, a history which affords 
a lamentable illustration of how the awards of gener- 
ous gratitude may be sacrificed to fruitless efforts to 
mete out equal and exact justice. I wish in this con- 
nection to call attention only to the fact that this dis- 
covery was made in the only way in which it possibly 
could have been made, and that is by the method of 
experimentation. The opponents of animal experi- 
mentation have endeavored to utilize for their purposes 
the alleged absence of experiments upon animals as 
the basis of this discovery. As a matter of fact, even 
leaving out of account the pioneer experiments upon 
animals by Humphry Davy with nitrous oxide, the 
first successful trial of ether as a general anesthetic 
for human beings by Morton was preceded by his 
demonstration of the power of this agent to produce 
in dogs unconsciousness and insensibility to pain. It 
would be strange, indeed, if these striking results of 
experiments upon animals had no influence in inducing 
him to test their applicability to human beings. 
It must, however, be admitted that the production 3 
of anesthesia in man by inhalation of ether was not 
preceded by such numerous and properly conducted 
experiments on animals as were required to afford any 
adequate conception of its effects or its possibilities of 
danger. We now know that such experiments would 
have yielded knowledge of this character. We know 
also that the anesthetic sleep induced by ether in man 
as well as in animals is not attended with more than a 
minimal amount of danger; but suitable experiments 
upon animals would have afforded more knowledge 
than Morton could have possessed as to whether there 
was to be sure awakening from that sleep so like unto 
death. Hence it is that when that patient fifty years 
ago to-day in this hospital was placed under the pro- 
found influence of ether he was made the subject of a 
scientific experiment of immense practical import and 
of unsurpassed boldness. This was the decisive ex- 
periment from which dates “ the continuous and conse- 
quent history ” of anesthesia. 
The discovery of surgical anesthesia is, I repeat, 
a triumph of the experimental method, albeit man 
himself was made the subject of experiment and there- 
by exposed to unknown possibilities of danger. 
If my theme embraced the consideration of all of 
the relations of artificial anesthesia to medical science, 
and did time permit, it would be proper for me to 
direct attention to the part played by animal experi- 
mentation in the discovery and introduction of new 
anesthetics and to the numerous physiological and 
pharmacological experiments, mainly upon animals, 
which have shed so much light upon the mode of 
action of anesthetics, particularly of ether and chloro- 
form, and the sources of danger in their employment. 
Although not all of the questions involved have yet 
been solved, these experiments have furnished a large 4 
amount of knowledge of great scientific value and of 
much practical interest concerning the properties of 
anesthetics, knowledge which it is certainly desirable 
to possess and much of which could not have been 
gained otherwise than by experiments upon animals. 
I might speak also of the broad biological iuterest 
which attaches to the universal susceptibility of living 
matter to the sleep-producing influence of ether and 
chloroform, a susceptibility extending even to vege- 
table cells and the simplest unicellular organisms, also 
of how the gentle killiug of certain bacteria by chloro- 
form enables us to detect in their bodies toxic sub- 
stances which are destroyed by more violent modes of 
death, and further of interesting properties of nerve 
and of muscle which have been revealed by studying 
under various conditions the action upon them of anes- 
thetic agents. But I do not interpret the subject as- 
signed to me as including the consideration of such 
matters as these, interesting as they are, and it is cer- 
tain that time would not permit even their sketchy 
presentation upon this occasion. 
What I especially desire to emphasize in these brief 
remarks is that the utility of the discovery of anes- 
thetics is not limited to their practical application 
to the surgical and medical and obstetrical arts, but 
that this discovery has been of great service also to 
medical science upon which these arts in large part rest. 
Anesthetics appeared upon the scene at a time 
when the experimental medical sciences were entering 
upon an epoch of activity and success far surpassing 
anything previously known in the history of medicine. 
Tbe shackles of philosophical speculation and dogma 
which bound medicine at the opening of this century 
had been broken by the work of such men as Bichat, 
Magendie, Johannes Muller, Rokitansky, Laenuec and 
Louis. Their work was based upon exact observa- 5 
tion and experiment, and there had come to be a 
general realization of the fact that these are the only 
trustworthy sources of knowledge. Animal experi- 
mentation. which, as a fruitful method of investiga- 
tion, began with Harvey’s discovery of the circulation 
of the blood, had in the hands of Charles Bell, Magen- 
die, Muller and others yielded abundant proofs of its 
value. It was during the fourth decade of this cen- 
tury that those great experimenters, Claude Bernard, 
from the school of Magendie, and Du Bois-Reymond, 
Helmholtz, Briicke and Ludwig, from the school of 
Muller, started their epochal investigations in physi- 
ology. It was at the same period that Virchow and 
Traube began those researches which established ani- 
mal experimentation, already successfully employed 
by John Hunter, as a most important aid in the 
development of pathological physiology. It was then 
also that experimental pharmacology, which had been 
inaugurated by Magendie, was first cultivated as a 
distinct branch of medical science by Buchheim. The 
need of suitably equipped laboratories where experi- 
mental investigations could be conducted was now 
felt more keenly than ever before. By being the 
first to supply these essential instruments of fruitful 
scientific activity, Germany took the lead in scientific 
discovery, a position which her enlightened policy in 
the establishment and support of laboratories has 
enabled her ever since to retain. 
The introduction of artificial anesthesia came at 
this auspicious period of awakened activity, which 
gave such promise of the rapid development of scien- 
tific medicine through the aid of exact observation and 
experiment. And how brilliantly has this early prom- 
ise been fulfilled by the discoveries of the last fifty 
years which have witnessed the creation of cellular 
pathology, the rapid development of physiology to a 6 
biological science of the first rank, conferring great 
beuefits upon medicine but extending far beyond the 
boundaries of medicine, the establishment of pharma- 
cology upon a broad scientific basis, and the birth of 
the science of bacteriology which has unlocked the 
gates to new fields whose brief exploration has already 
proven of such immense importance to preventive and 
curative medicine and practical surgery! It is true 
that, when we consider all that we may reasonably 
hope to learn concerning the structure and functions 
of living beings in health and in disease and how they 
may be influenced for good or for ill, only a corner of 
the curtain has been lifted, but when we compare the 
advance of medicine during the last fifty years with 
what was previously known, we can truthfully say that 
this advance has been greater during these years than 
during all the previous centuries. 
A large and important part of this progress is attrib- 
utable to the results obtained by means of experi- 
ments upon animals. One has only to imagine blotted 
out from the records of physiology, pathology, phar- 
macology, hygiene, bacteriology and other medical 
writings all of the facts which have been derived from 
animal experimentation to realize how immense would 
be the loss to both scientific and practical medicine, 
had investigators been deprived of this indispensable 
method of research. To point out in detail how broad 
and deep would be this gap cannot be even attempted 
in the short time here allotted, and would be surely 
unnecessary before this audience. 
The use of anesthetics has been such an important 
aid in the performance of these experiments upon 
animals during the past fifty years that it is eminently 
fitting on this jubilee that medical science should also 
pay its tribute to the beneficence of the great discovery 
here celebrated. 7 
The ways in which anesthetics have been serviceable 
to animal experimentation are essentially similar to 
those in which they have benefited surgery. 
The great majority of painful vivisectional experi- 
ments upon the higher animals are of such a nature 
that the object of the experiment is not defeated by 
the employment of anesthetics. In experiments of 
this class all trained experimenters should and do use 
anesthetics, and there is no evidence that there exists 
to-day any abuse of vivisection on this score in any 
properly conducted laboratory. The dictates of human- 
ity demand that we shall gain for the benefit of man 
knowledge which can be acquired only from experi- 
ments upon animals, and they demand also that this 
knowledge shall be gained without the infliction of 
needless suffering. Humane instincts are not less 
active among those who devote themselves to acquiring 
knowledge in this way than among other classes of 
men, but these instincts in the former are controlled 
not by false sentiment but bv reason and duty. It is 
a source of immense gratification to experimenters, 
as it should be to all with humane impulses, that in 
consequence of the discovery of artificial anesthesia so 
large a part of the useful knowledge which can be 
derived only from experiments upon animals can now 
be acquired without the infliction of pain. To cite the 
animal experiments of pre-anesthetic days, as for ex 
ample those of Magendie, as illustrations of present 
methods of experimentation, is as unwarrantable as 
would be a similar procedure in describing surgical 
operations. 
The advantages of anesthesia are not limited by the 
mere abolition of pain. In animal experimentation 
as well as in surgery the insensibility to pain and the 
cessation of voluntary movements induced by anes- 
thetics have rendered many operations easy which 8 
would otherwise have been difficult, many practicable, 
which would otherwise have been impossible. The suc- 
cess of the experiment is made much more certain when 
the operator can work at ease and without undue 
haste, undisturbed by the thought that he is inflicting 
pain. Ther« are physiological experiments which, so 
far as I am able to judge, make greater demands upon 
the patience and operative skill and delicacy of manip- 
ulation of the operator than any in surgery, and these 
never could be performed upon a sensitive and strug- 
gling animal. Sensations of pain are in themselves a 
disturbing factor which would defeat the purpose of 
not a few delicate physiological experiments. The 
experiments to determine the functions of the brain, 
which have yielded results of great importance to 
practical medicine and surgery as well as to science, 
may be mentioned as one out of many illustrations of 
this fact. The antiseptic management of wounds, 
which is essential to the success of some experiments 
and which alleviates subsequent suffering when it is 
necessary that the animal should survive the experi- 
ment, is greatly facilitated by the use of anesthetics. 
I trust that I may be pardoned if I pause here for a 
moment to correct a misconception which does not 
exist among well-informed medical men, least of all 
among practitioners of medicine, but which plays a 
considerable role in antivivisection literature. I refer 
to the distinction there made between the use of anes- 
thetics and that of narcotics for the purpose of render- 
ing animals insensible to pain. So far as the point in 
question is involved this distinction is ridiculous, and 
seems to be based upon a misunderstanding of some 
old physiological experiments. For prolonged experi- 
ments it is often advantageous to place the animal in 
the sleep induced by morphine or chloral instead of 
that of ether or chloroform. These drugs are admin- 9 
istered in much larger doses, and often in different 
ways, than is customary in human beings. That under 
these circumstauces the animal is rendered insensible 
to pain is a fact, the knowledge of which might have 
been gained from ordinary medical experience. 
Curara is a drug which has important uses in a cer- 
tain class of experiments upon animals. It has never 
been claimed by any scientific man that it is an anes- 
thetic, although it has been found capable of affording 
great relief from pain in some spasmodic affections of 
human beings. Its use has led to important physiolog- 
ical discoveries which could not well have been made 
without it, and in a limited class of cases its employ- 
ment, either with or without the coincident adminis- 
tration of anesthetics, is indispensable. 
There are, of course, experiments upon animals in 
which there is no occasion to employ anesthetics. 
Animal experimentation and vivisection are not co- 
extensive terms. There is a large group of experi- 
ments, mostly of a painless character, in which there 
is no cutting or other operative interference whatever 
with the animal. Here belong many of the experi- 
ments upon metabolism, upon diet, upon the fate of 
drugs, etc. There are others in which the operative 
act is so slight or transitory that the animal would 
suffer far more discomfort from the administration of 
an anesthetic than from the operation itself. There 
are, finally, painful vivisection experiments, relatively 
few in number however, whose purpose would be de- 
feated by the use of anesthetics. A striking example of 
such an experiment is that of Charles Bell in deter- 
mining the motor and sensory functions of the nerve 
roots of the spinal cord, an experiment which, with 
those of Galvani, laid the foundations of modern nerve 
physiology. 
Experiments upon animals have been and must con- 10 
tinue to be an indispensable aid to the progress of 
scientific and practical medicine. In the performance 
of a large number of these experiments the use of anes- 
thetics is of priceless service. I trust that without 
presumption I may here express in behalf of the great 
body of scientific workers in medicine throughout the 
civilized world their feelings of gratitude for the great 
boon conferred upon medical science by the discovery 
of artificial anesthesia, which in the form of a safe, use- 
ful and effective method, was first promulgated from 
this hospital fifty years ago to-day. Medicaland Surgical Journal. 
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