A NEW AN AESTHETIC.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9679, 31 December 1909, Page 7

A NEW AN AESTHETIC.

The medical profession of London was illuminated not long since by a demonstration of the qualities a new anaesthetic named stovaine, discovered by Professor T. Joimesco, Dean of the' University ot Bucharest. The use of stovaine produces insensibility to pain without destroying the patient's consciousness. The particular operation jmder notice was ])§rformed ac the Greenwich Searnerte Hoppital, the patient having been pSeP arec ' f° T *- ne removal cf a malignanNtuherculosis growth in'the neck. Profeaipr Jonnesco interjected three ceulirganMnea of stovaine and five strychnine dinsolved^in'""water, h\\ the spinal canal between two of the vertebrae at the base ot the neck. Two minutes later the operation was carriX! out in the ordinary way, the patYspt being perfectly conscious, and ting to the surgeons during tha whole proceedings. "Do you feel any , pain," asked one of the surgeons. "No, sir," said the patient. "Are you quite comfortable." "Yes, thank you," was the reply. The uncanny effect of these words spoktn by a man with a gaping wound three inches long and an inch deep in his neck may well be imagined. Five minutes afterwards bandages were applied, the patient got off the operating table, and walked into the next room to the stretcher which was to carry'him back to the ward, destined, it is to be hoped,' to live happily for many years after. The chief advantages of Professor Jonnesco's method, under which he has already performed some 700 operations, it is claimed, are that little skill is required to give the anaesthetic, the operating surgeon can administer it himeslf, all the discomforts of ordinary general anaesthesia are avoided, and, most important of all, there are no unpleasant or dangerous after effects. Professor Jonnesco was to give a further demonstration before the Royal Society of Medicine just after the last mail left, and if it should have proved j successful there is every reason to i hope that stovaine may, in the near future, be included in the armoury of means at the disposal of the modern surgeon for robbini? operations of half their terrors, and more than a spice of their present: dangprs.