3 - History of Anaesthesia Society

he also worked in the Military Hospital, where he performed a number of
operations. On 8th September that year he returned to lQdrid.
On return to duty as general surgeon in the Madrid Provincial Hospital, he
was appointed co-ordinator for the organisation of medical units in the
Swish Army, for which he was honoured in 1919, and was then comnissioned
to prepare a classification of wounds and injuries for use during military
campaigns. In the same year he became co-founder of 'Revista Espanola de
Cirurgia', today, still the official orqan of the Spnish Surgical Society.
At the same time he continued his mrk in t'le Military Hospital td?ere he
taught the nurses with swcial courses on emergency surgery, wri-operative
care, local and general anaesthesia, wound healing, sterilisation and the
preparation of all kinds of material for the care of wounds.
In September 1921 he was ssnt again to Melilla, to the Hospital Doecker. He
was chief of 3urqic3l staff in the city during the terrible disaster of
Annual, when rebels headed by .4M el Krim, charged and destroyed all the
Spanish military psts up to the streets of the city during the battles of
Tissa in September, Atlaton and Segangan in October, and Tarrenda in
November. He remained in the operating room for several days and as
subsequently honoured for his treatment of the wounded and his skills in
medical organisation. In Decemher 1921 he returned to his post in Madrid.
In August 1923 he went on holiday to San Sebastian in northern Spain, to
tne spa at Cestona (for treatment by the medicinal waters) and was present
at the inauguration of an operating room at the Military Fbspital in San
Sebastian. After performing his last operation there he started Mck to
mdrid by car on 21st September, but died in a car crash at Quintanaplla
in the northern province of brgos at the age of 34.
Pages published pxrs about many different subjects; frequently
discussed his exprience in the treatment of Mttle injuri~s~'-~ one paper
a prlze by the Swish Vilitary academy in 1914. Other
*' papers revealed a special interest in the treatment of cancer.
C i ~ i l i ~ ~ _ ~ ~ was ~ i also e n ct%e e basis of papers on aspects of general
surgery including the surgical treatment of con~ti~t~on~~, his lsst
paper.
J.m&m epidural anaesthesia
And finally there was his great contrihtion to anaesthesia, his 'Metameric
Anaesthesia' which was pblished simultaneously in Flax 921 in 'Revista
Fspanola de Cirurgia' and 'Reviata de Sanidad Militar'. Ihile he was
carrying out a spinal anaesthetic he had the ides of halting the progress
of the tip of the needle in the spinal canal befare it pierced the d m
mter, and then blxking the roots outside the theca after the needle had
~ssed through the ligamenturn flavun. He abandoned the Stovaine he had
prepared, and dissolved three tablets of Suprerenin Novocain in 2-
physiological saline in a sterilised container, proceeding to inject the
solution through the needle which had been inserted between the second and
third 1-r vertebrae.