CHAPTER XXV.
GENERAL ANESTHETICS.
The subject of general anesthesia concerns the surgeon much more than it does the physician, but, as in the matter of antisepsis, the physician must have some knowledge of this subject, and we shall, therefore, briefly consider the more important members of the group of general anesthetics, their uses and their probable limitations.Narcotics have been used from time immemorial, for producing unconsciousness during surgical operations, but nitrous oxid has been in use longer than any other agent now employed for inducing general anesthesia. It is more than 100 years since Sir Humphrey Davy first suggested this use for nitrous oxid, but his suggestion met with no response, and it was not until many years later, in 1844, that Horace Wells, a dentist of Hartford, Conn., employed it for that purpose and thus introduced what he was pleased to term "a new era in tooth-pulling."It