Dr. Mutter's Marvels
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translation in 1831 of Velpeau’s Traité . . . flowed in rapid succession from his hand: Ibid.
He prepared many of his books within a few months: Ibid.
composed one of his bestselling textbooks . . . between two teaching sessions: Ibid.
“a meager book”: Ibid.
“the task would be useless”: Ibid.
“very misty”: Ibid.
“a haze of words”: Ibid.
that the placenta was entirely fetal in origin . . . between it and the uterine wall: Ibid.
the muscular structure of the womb: Ibid.
physician who, upon introducing his hand to remove . . . relaxed by copious bloodletting”: Ibid.
was an eloquent advocate of the use of the lancet: Ibid.
overcome the rigidity of the birth canal, and as his cure of eclampsia: Ibid.
vividly impress into the minds . . . views he wanted to promote: Ibid.
not only to positively deny the contagious nature . . . opposed with him: Ibid.
Squibb was a local boy, born on the Fourth of July of 1819: Blochman, Dr. Squibb
“ineffectual invalid for the rest of his days”: Ibid.
working as an apprentice for a Philadelphia pharmacist . . . house of J. H. Sprague: Ibid.
“unqualified favorites”: Ibid.
“Dr. Bache, with his patriarchal white beard and distinguished lineage”: Ibid.
“with his clear, playing, logical and unforgettable . . . contrasts strongly with some of the rest”: Ibid.
“the clean-shaven, dramatic, Bermuda born”: Ibid.
“the originality of idea, and erratic, familiar manner . . . not fit well elsewhere”: Ibid.
“He and Bache are wildly different as good and bad” . . . “And yet both are capital teachers”: Ibid.
“a striking figure as he stood before his class . . . his high forehead”: Ibid.
his skill and knowledge: Ibid.
humor in his lectures: Ibid.
doleful expression: Ibid.
attempted to examine her . . . “Ah, mon pauvre docteur, c’est tout gâté pour jamais!”: Ibid.
with an admiring but not uncritical eye: Ibid.
“small, blue-eyed Mütter with his dark curly hair graying prematurely, and his finely chiseled features”: Ibid.
clear, musical voice: Ibid.
“round faced Pancoast, bald except for a monastic fringe . . . sandy handlebar mustache”: Ibid.
wiping his bloody fingers on his pocket handkerchief and . . . “on whatever was handy”: Ibid.
openly discussed his differences with them: Ibid.
in the amphitheater for their lectures: Ibid.
Bache invited Squibb to his “medical-club meeting”: Ibid.
strictly professional conversation was prohibited by rule: Ibid.
“keep down the rebellion in [their] stomachs”: Ibid.
“beyond any real medical help”: The British and Foreign Medical Review 18 (July–October 1844): 525–526 (London: John Churchill, 1844)
“There are few, if any, deformities consequent on accident . . . transatlantic surgery”: Ibid.
the fastest knife in the West End: Gordon, Great Medical Disasters
“Time me, gentlemen, time me!”: Ibid.
removal of a forty-five-pound scrotal tumor in four minutes: Ibid.
prior to the operation, the poor patient . . . carry his scrotum around in a wheelbarrow: Ibid.
sawed off the patient’s testicles: Ibid.
“a distinguished surgical spectator”: Ibid.
“dropped dead from fright”: Ibid.
“the only operation in history with a 300 percent mortality [rate]”: Ibid.
“surgeons operated in blood-stiffened frock coats”: Ibid.
“the stiffer the coat, the prouder the busy surgeon”: Ibid.
“There was no object in being clean . . . manicure his nails before chopping off a head”: Ibid.
his suggestions for hygiene improvement to reduce obstetric . . . from puerperal fever: Ibid.
“outraged obstetricians, particularly in Philadelphia”: Ibid.
“abrupt, abrasive, argumentative” . . . “charitable to the poor and tender to the sick”: Ibid.
“He relished operating successfully in the reeking tenements . . . and made a fortune”: Ibid.
incisions, hemorrhage, and the dressing and union of wounds: Liston, Lectures on the Operations of Surgery
It covered injuries of the scalp, the cranium, and the brain, including the most effective trephining techniques: Ibid.
“In presenting to the profession in this country . . . veterans of our art”: Ibid.
“It will be observed that this volume contains all the lectures . . . hands of every surgeon”: Ibid.
“The additional matter furnished by the editor . . . publication of the lectures be continued”: Ibid.
That year, Jefferson Medical College could not only claim . . . in the entire United States: “Part I: Jefferson Medical College 1846 to 1855”; http://jdc.jefferson.edu/wagner1/16
The college celebrated by renovating its main lecture hall: Ibid.
The upper and lower lecture rooms were enlarged to seat 600 students: Ibid.
the upper lecture hall—known as the pit: Ibid.
This “miniature hospital” would represent a precursor . . . built nearly thirty years later: Ibid.
six Corinthian columns that graced the facade: Ibid.
the form of a Grecian temple: Ibid.
“In every respect, the comfort and advantage of the students . . . successful teaching”: “Annual Announcement of Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia: Session of 1847–48” (1847), Jefferson Medical College Catalogs, Paper 62; http://jdc.jefferson.edu/jmc_catalogs/62
“[We] expected . . . to be back yesterday . . . remain some time longer”: Ibid.
“the irreparable loss our Nation has sustained . . . Andrew Jackson”: Jefferson Medical College Minutes
crepe on the left arm for sixty straight days: Ibid.
the building itself was shrouded in black mourning bunting for six months: Ibid.
“Mütter has no children and makes a good income by his profession”: “The Diaries of Sidney George Fisher, 1844–1849,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 86, no. 1 (Jan. 1962): 49–90
“At so large a dinner conversation is never general . . . chiefly owes his success”: Ibid.
——CHAPTER SIXTEEN——
If a person inhales the right quantity . . . no pain during medical or surgical procedures: Ira M. Rutkow, M.D., American Surgery: An Illustrated History (Philadelphia: Lippincott-Raven, 1998)
continuously screamed out in wretched pain whenever Wells . . . rotten tooth: Ibid.
They called Wells a swindler: Ibid.
said his discovery was a humbug: Ibid.
his career never recovered: Ibid.
“incident of history gone awry”: Ibid.
common side effects of inhaling nitrous oxide gas: Ibid.
agitated behavior: Ibid.
a medical breakthrough was showcased . . . even knew it: Ibid.
“laughing gas parties” or “ether frolics”: Ibid.
“exhilarating features”: Ibid.
The sudden loss of equilibrium and inhibition . . . roaring crowds: Ibid.
sulphuric ether and nitrous oxide: Ibid.
“It is the greatest discovery ever made! . . . prick of a pin!”: Ibid.
John Collins Warren, the influential professor . . . Massachusetts General Hospital: Ibid.
Charles Thomas Jackson, “one of the most eccentric . . . surgical anesthesia”: Ibid.
Jackson, a graduate of Harvard Medical School, began inhaling nitr
ous in 1841: Ibid.
by 1844, he had persuaded several local dentists . . . patients’ toothaches: Ibid.
it was Jackson who suggested in September 1846 . . . than nitrous oxide: Ibid.
John Collins Warren if he might share this latest innovation with his class: Bauer, Doctors
October 16, 1846, in the same surgical amphitheater as Wells’s fiasco: Ibid.
“anonymous” liquid on a patient: Ibid.
the dawn of a new era in surgery: Ibid.
“Gentlemen, this is no humbug”: Ibid.
——CHAPTER SEVENTEEN——
“The Physician Must Be a Determined, . . . most successful”: Mütter, Charge to the Graduates, 1851
“unqualified triumph”: Ibid.
which he called Letheon, after Lethe . . . mythology’s river of forgetfulness: Ibid.
who already imagined that Letheon contained sulphuric ether: Ibid.
challenged Morton to use his “preparation” . . . full amputation at the thigh: Ibid.
“It was the custom to bring the patient . . . before the advent of anesthesia”: Ibid.
the patient “unconscious and insensitive to pain”: Ibid.
detailed public announcement . . . Boston Society for Medical Improvement: Ibid.
Medical and Surgical Journal a week later: Ibid.
Bigelow’s actions represent the first formal announcement . . . medical profession: Ibid.
considerable controversy: Ibid.
the first use of ether anesthesia: Ibid.
Dr. Crawford W. Long . . . anesthesia for minor procedures as early as 1842: Ibid.
unlike Morton and Wells, Long did not share the news . . . Morton’s demonstrations: Ibid.
Two days before Christmas in 1846 . . . pit of Jefferson Medical College: Thomas Jefferson Department of Surgery (Undated)
“appeared often at operations to be painfully sympathetic . . . the patient”: Levis, “Memoir of Thomas Dent Mütter”
the first surgeon in Philadelphia to administer anesthesia: Berkowitz, Adorn the Halls
——CHAPTER EIGHTEEN——
Much to Mütter’s shock, the medical community’s . . . in Philadelphia: Berkowitz, Adorn the Halls
“We are persuaded that the surgeons of Philadelphia . . . younger brethren”: Rutkow, American Surgery
there was a great number of deaths: Ibid.
“The last special wonder has already arrived at the natural . . . of its predecessor novelties”: Ibid.
These agents have been employed to relieve pain in all sorts . . . to be regarded as an evil: Ibid.
The board of Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania Hospital . . . surgical anesthesia for seven years: Ibid.
“I acknowledge that I am an enthusiastic admirer . . . and so plainly?”: Meigs, Memoir
“He taught in his lectures not only the absolute duty of the student . . . that of the preacher”: Ibid.
“He always held that there was in the practice of medicine . . . desire to escape from”: Ibid.
“great pains to demonstrate the dangers of ether inhalation”: Brinton, “Alumni Address: The Faculty of 1841”
how easily a life might be destroyed by this . . . than by etherizing a sheep to death: Ibid.
in order to afford his students, as he alleged, “a practical illustration of its dangers: Ibid.
“Prejudice was an element deeply rooted in his character”: Autobiography of Samuel D. Gross
“His opposition to [anesthesia] was founded, not upon personal . . . its evil effects”: Ibid.
“Certainly, my dear friend,” was the invariable answer: Ibid.
“Then, by God, I hope you will kill your patient!” was the invariable rejoinder: Ibid.
“You will find it hard when you die to pass the gates of St. Peter . . . the altar of science”: Ibid.
hearty laugh: Ibid.
brought a sheep into the amphitheater to be “heroically etherized” to death: Brinton, “Alumni Address: The Faculty of 1841”
Ellerslie Wallace . . . Meigs’s dutiful assistant, poured the freshly prepared ether from a demijohn: Ibid.
“My long and extensive practice of midwifery has rendered . . . daughters of Eve: Meigs, Obstetrics
“Perhaps, I am cruel in taking so dispassionate a view” . . . however rarely: Ibid.
“So I ask you? Should I exhibit a remedy for pain . . . the risk of killing one woman?: Ibid.
“My God,” he whispered, “ if that were to happen, I ask that you clothe me in . . . should any of us?”: Ibid.
“conversational, not at all rhetorical. . . . of anybody else”: Autobiography of Samuel D. Gross
in the lecture room Meigs was the best actor he had ever seen: Ibid.
for he “possessed all the requisites for success upon the stage . . . strong perception of the ludicrous”: Ibid.
once-dead sheep: Brinton, “Alumni Address: The Faculty of 1841”
——CHAPTER NINETEEN——
“The Physician Should Be a Discreet Man. . . . from troubles”: Mütter, Charge to the Graduates, 1851
by having his students rush into church and falsely claim there was an emergency: Unattributed Mütter note in a biography found in Thomas Jefferson University Archive in the Alumni Address re: the Faculty of ’41 File
“The operation was an extensive one . . . Pancoast assisted . . . have good effect”: Blochman, Dr. Squibb
“the most bungling demonstration I ever saw”: Ibid.
shrieking patient’s “blood and tears detracted from the artistic effect”: Ibid.
“The patient was not easily etherized”: Ibid.
“but was finally brought under the full effect . . . and replied he did not know it was done”: Ibid.
no groaning or noise during the operation . . . when the anesthetic effect would diminish: Ibid.
operation to be “very well and prettily and quickly done”: Ibid.
“Some notable bleeding from the end of the bone but probably not serious”: Ibid.
“A large audience and only one case of fainting”: Ibid.
operation as a grand performance—“Barnum by Dr. Mütter”: Ibid.
“zealous and enduring attention”: “Annual Announcement of Jefferson” (1847); http://jdc.jefferson.edu/jmc_catalogs/62
“ample opportunities . . . for pursuits in practical anatomy”: Ibid.
“the student has much more leisure than during the session”: Ibid.
a thorough renovation of the building: Ibid.
“So satisfied are the faculty of the value to the students . . . the business of instruction”: Ibid.
796 patients: Ibid.
the much larger Pennsylvania Hospital, with its full staff . . . patients in its twelve- month period: Ibid.
“The Clinic enables the professors to exhibit to the class . . . operated on before the class”: Ibid.
Of the 796 patients . . . 409 people—came to be treated in Mütter’s surgical ward: Ibid.
176 of the 796 patients were under the age of ten: Ibid.
82 of those were under the age of three: Ibid.
399 males and 397 females: Ibid.
diseases of the mouth, the stomach, and the intestines: Ibid.
They treated chronic enlargement of the spleen, herpes . . . and impetigo: Ibid.
lupus, cholera, epilepsy, and gonorrhea: Ibid.
“idiocy” or “insanity” or “hypochondria”: Ibid.
fingers that had been crushed between train cars . . . by gunpowder, and broken bones: Ibid.
“conical stumps”: Ibid.
“Multitudes of surgical patients, as attested by the register . . . employed in vain”: Pancoast, A Discourse Commemorative
surgeries because of “spontaneous contraction of
hands and feet . . . a diseased sternum”: “Annual Announcement of Jefferson” (1847); http://jdc.jefferson.edu/jmc_catalogs/62
elephantiasis: The Journal of Edward Robinson Squibb, M.D. (private printing, George E. Crosby Co., 1930)
took up a collection for the man: Ibid.
“He loved . . . to match himself with the most difficult cases . . . energy of the strife”: Pancoast, A Discourse Commemorative
“His office was thronged with patients from every part of the Union . . . to consult him”: Levis, “Memoir of Thomas Dent Mütter”
“At the clinic of the College, on his entrance . . . but touch his garment, I shall be whole”: Ibid.
“At no time had the ample resources of Philadelphia . . . more triumphantly exhibited”: “Annual Announcement of Jefferson” (1847), http://jdc.jefferson.edu/jmc_catalogs/62
“In no hospital which I have visited, abroad or at home . . . application of instruments”: Pancoast, A Discourse Commemorative
did not largely decrease the percentage of deaths that resulted from operations: Rutkow, American Surgery
still died at the same rate as surgical patients who endured operations without anesthesia: Ibid.
John Collins Warren wrote a second monograph . . . to educate the public on the subject: Ibid.
“The introduction of chloroform produced an excitement . . . within little more than a year”: Ibid.
Removing this element from the act of surgery seemed strange and unnatural to some: Ibid.
American Journal of the Medical Sciences, army surgeon John B. Porter: Ibid.
“the blood is poisoned, the nervous influence and muscular . . . adhesion is prevented”: Ibid.
A System of Operative Surgery: Based upon the Practice of Surgeons in the United States: Ibid
“In the majority of cases, the creation of pain by any operation . . . by every operator”: Ibid.
did not yet employ antiseptic or aseptic measures: Ibid.
patients died of common postoperative problems . . . wound sepsis, and shock: Ibid.
by writing a series of articles: Ibid.
“the supposed dangers of anesthetic agents” (later released as an authoritative monograph): Ibid.