Volume 9b - History of Anaesthesia Society

plblic atmut the activities of tj~e scientific and medical establishment.
me scientists and practitioners of Boston stress& that the
antivivisectionistsl attacks were directed against medical science and
endangered the fre~com to acquire knawledge. 'lb the President of
Harvard the propsed legislation repreqented an attack on academic
fredom and the? entire el~cational process. The bill ms not passed.
IUt t9e attack rms continued in 1900; 'animl experimentation
ultimately leads to h m exprimeritation' and the centre piece was to
be \ientrrrorthts experimental operations in children, i.e.lumbar pmcture.
Nathaniel Boditch (Desn of Harvard Yeclical School and one of the
founders of the Anlerican PAy~iologic-11 Society, as well as its first
President) and members of the Boston Society Yedica'L Defensr Cornittee
deliberately decided to mount no defence. They felt that a vir~orous
public debate on the issue might interfere with thsir efforts to raise
funds for the new Medical Sc~ml hildinys. In an effort to avoid
controversy during the hearings, Rotditch prepxed a public avlogy to
defuse the issue: 'Dr Wentworth's expriments on lumbar puncture have
ken universally and emphatically condemned by the medical profession ...
Dr Plentworth himself now entirely &Fees with the opinion here axpressed
and regrets extrmly that his enthusiasm for the advancement of
rnedicir~e led him to forget his duty to his ptient.' Wentworth I.limself
had no input to the deliberations, nor to the statement. He resigned
from Itwvard. No-one at the medical sc'.iool spoke in his defence or in
the defence of lumbx puncture, not even his chief Dr T ?iI Rotch who had
m-authored Wentworthls first paper in the 'Boston Medical and Surgical
Journal ' .
Such an occlrrence could only emphasise the cultural and scientific
attitudinal lag txtween &rowan developments and Awrican medical
assimi.lation that Corning had been conscious of while establishing his
practice. The contrast rvas stark and severe. In Europe discipline was
internal to the profession, scientific data and 13bratory tt~hniques
defined medical practice; achievement was rneasured only in terms defi.ned
by the world of academic science. Whereas in American medical schcwls
political and financial consiclerations were still factors in
professional success and in medical practice, external social attributes
determined distritmtion of status and influence.. During the years that
the American publications of Coming, Jacoby (1895) and Caille (18915)
were pointedly overlooked, similar European studies of Quincke
(1887,1891), von Ziemssen (1893), Sicard (1898), Bier (1899) and Tuffier
(1899) were openly proclaimed and discussed at internation31 meetings.
After the International Medical Congress of August 19K1, 'ILlffierls
surgical clinics were visited by Mrican surgeons. Impressed, they
returned to their hospitals, satisfactorily duplicated this new form of
surgical anaesthesia, and plblished a plethora of enthused reports. Now
under the protection of 'authoritative1 European approval, no longer
having to distance themselves from possible accusations of h m
experiment, ancl with the further competitive impetus of mastering the
latest medical advances, suddenly t!le American surrJeons could fearlessly
copy a procedure they could have pioneered. As a Professor of Surgery
in Chicaqo, John R Mtqhy pointed out: 'It is to be regretted that the
Americans were so long in awreciating the great original work of