Volume 196 - Issue 5
We’ll drink to that: the 200th anniversary of Australia’s oldest hospital
Author: John D Paull
Med J Aust 2012; 196 (5): 315-316. || doi: 10.5694/mja12.10142
Published online: 19 March 2012
Published online: 19 March 2012
To the Editor: The entertaining history of Sydney Hospital by Kappagoda1 illustrates the risk of accepting local lore as fact. The assertions that Sydney Hospital “hosted the first operation [in Australia] under general anaesthetic” and that it was “a leg amputation under chloroform” are both incorrect.
The first surgical operations under general anaesthesia in Australia took place in Launceston, Tasmania, on Monday 7 June 1847, using ether administered with apparatus that had been depicted in the Illustrated London News.2,3 Two patients were successfully anaesthetised by Dr William Russ Pugh — both walked home and were completely happy with the procedure.
The operation referred to by Kappagoda was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) on Monday 28 June 1847 as having occurred “a few days back”4 — at least 2 weeks after Pugh’s patients were anaesthetised. Further, ether, not chloroform, was used in Sydney. The SMH reporter had also seen ether used to anaesthetise patients on other occasions, but these patients were undergoing dental extraction.
The decision to operate may have been precipitated by a news item in the SMH on Thursday 24 June 1847. The paper reported that “The medical men at Launceston have made several successful experiments in performing surgical operations on patients who have inhaled ether.”5 To local readers, it would have been obvious that this had occurred at least several days, and possibly several weeks, before the Sydney surgery, because of the delay in transmitting news from Launceston to Sydney. Perhaps this news spurred the Sydney surgeons to act.
Competing interests
No relevant disclosures.
References
- Kappagoda A. We’ll drink to that: the 200th anniversary of Australia’s oldest hospital. Med J Aust 2012, 196: 77-78. 0_CACGDCEC
- Anon. St John’s Hospital — surgical operations — the influence of ether. Launceston Examiner 1847; 9 Jun: 370. http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/36252255/3613004 (accessed Jan 2012).
- Mr Hooper’s ether inhaler. Illustrated London News 1847; 9 Jan: 30. 0_CBBEJEEJ
- The painless surgery excitement. Sydney Morning Herald 1847; 28 Jun: p. 2, c. 3. http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/page/4091116 (accessed Jan 2012).
- Anon. The medical men at Launceston. Sydney Morning Herald 1847; 24 Jun: p. 3, c. 6. http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/page/1514842 (accessed Jan 2012).