The Use of Human Plasma in Spinal Anesthesia

Abstract

time as it was in 1940. Civilian instruction would do much to provide an increasing number of anesthetists definitely needed for this type of service in the armed forces. The efficiency of instruction given in established centers of anes¬ thesiology does not suffer by comparison with that given in the more recently formed military hospitals. Moreover, the physical status of civilian surgical cases more nearly approxi¬ mates, it would seem, that of those encountered in combat service, for civilian practice includes anesthesia for patients of lowered physical status, while that in the service, excluding combat zones, deals mainly with individuals with acute surgical conditions, otherwise in excellent physical status, and in the age group possessing a high resistance. Practice on civilian patients should therefore be valuable training for the future care of combat patients, many of whom are in poor physical status as the result of shock, pain, hemorrhage and trauma, and the unavoidable delay of surgical care frequently encountered. Instruction in anesthesia for military application will be placed on a sound basis when a list of the agents and methods avail¬ able in the field is known. This, I believe, has not as yet been determined or at least not as yet been made public.Dr. Sidney C. Wiggin, Boston: Major Martin is to be congratulated for accomplishing in a short time what was thought to be impossible : an organized department of anes¬ thesiology to supply modern methods of civilian practice for pain relief for the military casualty. He has established an anesthesia teaching center for medical officers and enlisted men.My thought is that too few physician anesthetists have been trained in civilian practice, so this program is of vital impor¬ tance to supply the special operating teams to be organized at the different hospital stations in the line of evacuation. I should like to emphasize the importance of empowering the medical officer in anesthesia with the same authority as the surgical officer in the operating units, so that he may carry out the practices in which his special training has fitted him.Dr. Stevens J. Martin, Fort Dix, N. J. : I fully agree with Dr. Ruth that the time won't be long distant before we shall have to resort to the training of the nonmedical but bio¬ logically trained men to fill in the gaps in various units that are being sent out to do anesthesia and operative work in the field. This problem, I believe, will become more and more acute as the war progresses. I thank you for your kind remarks and I hope that we shall have the fortune of seeing other insti¬ tutions resort to the training of personnel in anesthesia to relieve the rather grave shortage of anesthetists in the armed forces.The Common Good of Mankind.-The profession of medi¬ cine, having for its end the common good of mankind, knows nothing of national enmities, of political strife, of sectarian dis¬ sensions. Disease and pain the sole conditions of its ministry, it is disquieted by no misgivings concerning the justice and hon...