Chapter 359 Overcoming Pain

October 15, 1842.

University of Vienna, Austria.

Lawford Williamson Lange is an unknown American doctor, and today he was invited to one of the world's top universities, the Imperial University of Vienna, to announce his research results.

In fact, as early as March 20, 1842, Lawford had already performed such an operation. He used ether gas to successfully anesthetize a young man named James Webb and removed a tumor for him.

But Lawford Williamson Lange's achievements are not well known. In fact, in the following years, many doctors claimed to have invented ether anesthesia.

In particular, Dr. William Thomas Greene Morton's successful performance at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's main campus made many people see the effect of ether anesthesia and regarded him as the first person to conduct inhalation anesthesia experiments.

Even Morton's epitaph reads: "Because of him, surgical pain was prevented and eliminated. Before him, surgery was extremely painful; after him, science defeated pain."

But in fact, whether it is Morton or the aforementioned Lange, after inventing ether anesthesia, the two were obsessed with the competition for patent rights, which resulted in nothing being accomplished afterwards, which is a pity.

However, Franz was not interested in who invented inhalation anesthesia. If he liked, he could have done it himself a few years ago, but it is better to let professionals do such risky things.

Anesthesia is still a technology with great risks even today when the technology is mature.

Franz is concerned about the concept of sterility and anesthesia technology, and how many civilians and injured soldiers can be saved in the future.

It was completely an accident that Lawford Williamson Lange used ether. When he was studying at school, he found that many participants at some parties entertained themselves by inhaling laughing gas or ether. Not only did they dance and look funny, but they also often fell or bumped into things without feeling pain.

So he just used ether gas with a try-and-see attitude. There was no scientific argument before, and he didn't even know how much to use.

At this time, Lawford Williamson Lange accepted a $10,000 prize from the University of Vienna, and he had to bite the bullet and perform his "little trick" in front of countless experts and scholars.

For the sake of safety and success rate, Lawford Williamson Lange found a gout patient. Lawford promised the patient that he could get rid of the pain caused by gout for free, and would give him $500 as a reward.

But the gout patient never dreamed that he would never open his eyes again.

At first, Lawford Williamson Lange's American opening remarks had a counterproductive effect. After all, the people who came to watch his demonstration took time out of their busy schedules to see the progress of science, not to listen to his vulgar jokes.

(The old-fashioned American opening remarks start with dirty jokes and funny satires.)

Lawford compared the feet of gout patients to a beautiful woman. According to him, as long as the tube is inserted into the patient's mouth, after another thirty seconds, you can do whatever you want.

However, the Austrian doctors and scholars present generally did not speak English very well, and they watched the demonstration in a very formal manner, so they did not find it funny.

In fact, Franz also felt that Lawford's opening remarks were not very good. This metaphor was not funny at all, but rather a bit disgusting.

Talia and Adjani, who watched the demonstration together, looked at Franz with strange eyes. The former thought that there was a mysterious powder brought back from the Amazon rainforest by Costa (a kind of explorer), so why did he need ether?

The latter thought that Franz must have some hidden hobbies, so he needed the other person to lose consciousness. In short, both of them felt that Franz had bad intentions.

"Scientific progress! What do you know! Think about when you have your teeth pulled out in the future, the doctor will use pliers to clamp your decayed teeth and spin them like a crocodile, and you will know the greatness of this invention."

As soon as Franz finished speaking, Talia and Adjani deliberately showed their snow-white teeth.

According to Franz's idea, people who often eat candy should have bad teeth.

In fact, this idea is wrong. People who often eat candy may not have bad teeth, but people who often eat low-quality food must have bad teeth.

It was not uncommon for poor people in their thirties to lose all their teeth during this period, because the food they ate was too coarse and caused serious wear and tear on their teeth, and things like toothpaste and tooth powder were not yet popular.

At the beginning of the demonstration, Lawford Williamson Langer let the subject inhale a large amount of ether gas for thirty seconds to ensure that he would not wake up during the operation.

After confirming that the other party had lost consciousness, Dr. Lawford began his performance. He deliberately made the incision very large so that the doctors present could feel the pain of cutting the skin and flesh.

However, Dr. Lawford was not in a hurry to remove the tophi, but deliberately used a knife to cut and search on the patient's feet, and then sutured.

Although Austrian doctors and scholars had previously disdained this American, they did realize the magic of this new technology at this time and began to watch the operation seriously.

In the end, a total of 12 tophi of various sizes were removed. The operation was very successful. Just as the applause was thundering, someone discovered something wrong.

Some special changes occurred in the subject's body, changes that only dead people would experience. A Hungarian student from the University of Vienna Medical School, Semmelweis Ignaz Philip, discovered this abnormality and immediately asked Lawford Williamson Lange.

The latter was still immersed in his own success and did not notice the changes in the subject. When Dr. Lawford examined him, he fell to the ground.

"He's dead."

The whole audience was in an uproar. It was not uncommon for people to die from excessive inhalation of ether gas, but it happened in public, which sounded the alarm for the Austrian medical community.

Is ether a magical gas that saves lives, or a poisonous gas that kills people invisibly?

The Vienna medical community launched a full-scale debate on this. The result of the debate was naturally the safe use of ether anesthetic gas code, which stipulates that ether is a dangerous drug and must be prescribed and used by professional doctors.

At the same time, a series of more in-depth studies on the hazards and dosage of ether were also carried out, which made great contributions to the anesthesia cause of the Austrian Empire in the future.

As for Dr. Lawford Williamson Langer, although he caused the death of one person due to his negligence, he returned to the United States with his bonus because the laws at that time were not perfect and there were no relevant punishment provisions, and the dead were not Austrians.

Franz deeply regretted the death of the gout patient, but was also glad that he did not choose to do the experiment himself at that time, otherwise he would not be able to escape the notoriety of a murderer in the future.

Talia thought that this thing was too dangerous and should consider oral anesthesia, such as laudanum. Ajani thought that ether gas could be used as an interrogation tool in the future.