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viii, 193 pp.; illus. Contemporary 3/4-leather & cloth. Leather scuffed. Cloth quite mottled. Very Good. First Edition. COPY OF T. LAUDER BRUNTON (with his bookplate). "Dr. Lauder Brunton, F.R.S., represented THE LANCET at the Second Hyderabad Commission, and the able Report which he assisted to draw up appeared in the columns of THE LANCET in 1890. Many thanks are due from us to Dr. Lauder Brunton for his services on this occasion and subsequently" (Prefatory Note by the Editors of the Lancet, p. v). Reprints the three reports in the Hyderabad chloroform controversy from 1888-1893. This copy is a remarkable association, having belonged to Lauder Brunton, who represented The Lancet at the Second Hyderabad Commission. "When the first edition of Buxton's Anaesthetics appeared in 1888 anaesthetic practice in this country, so far as it was moving at all, was on the down grade. The turning-point in this decline appears to have come with the publication of the Report of the Second Hyderabad Commission, which startled anaesthetists out of their lethargy and set them arguing, and, for the first time for almost a decade, observing and testing their observations" (Duncum, Development of Inhalation Anaesthesia, p. 469). Contains: 1. Report of the Second Hyderabad Chloroform Commission (1890). (Originally published in The Lancet.) 2. Report of the First Hyderabad Chloroform Commission (1888). (This report was originally published in Bombay in 1891.) 3. Report of the Lancet Commission Appointed to Investigate the Subject of the Administration of Chloroform and Other Anæsthetics from a Clinical Standpoint (1893) (originally published in The Lancet.) The so-called first Hyderabad Commission--in which experiments under the supervision of Surgeon-Major Edward Lawrie were performed at the Hyderabad Medical School in India--concluded that death from chloroform was due to respiratory, not heart failure, contrary to majority medical opinion in England. In response to criticism from the editor of The Lancet, Lawrie--acting on behalf of the Nizam of Hyderabad, who had appointed the first commission in 1888--offered 1000 pounds to The Lancet to send a representative to Hyderabad to repeat the experiments of the first commission. Lauder Brunton was selected by The Lancet to be that person. The second Hyderabad Commission confirmed the results of the first, its report being published in The Lancet in 1890. But The Lancet was not yet convinced, and so a questionnaire was prepared to obtain information based upon clinical experience from individual members of the medical profession and from hospitals. The analysis of the answers obtained from the questionnaires was published in The Lancet in 1893. "When the commotion caused in the field of practical anaesthesia by the report of the second Hyderabad Chloroform Commission thus quietly subsided in 1893, it was noticeable that the beliefs as to the dangers of chloroform anaesthesia held by the opposing parties remained essentially unshaken" (Duncum, ibid., p. 439). Duncum devotes chapter XV to the "Hyderabad Commission and Its Consequences." OCLC does not locate any copies in US libraries. COPAC locates 1 copy in the UK: Wellcome. Seller Inventory # 14775
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