| Nikolay Ivanovich Pirogov |
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| Nikolay Ivanovich Pirogov, depicted
outside his "FST"in this painting in the Panorama Museum
at Sevastopol, is regarded as the father of Russian
military surgery. |
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| He instituted a five stage system of
triage, he used novel amputation methods whilst using
ether as an anaesthetic and used plaster casts to
stabilised fractured limbs. |
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| He was ahead of his British
professional contemporaries on the other side during the
Crimean War (1854-56) having already used anaesthesia in
the field in the Caucasus campaign in 1854. |
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| The British Principal Medical Officer
had issued a warning that chloroform was too dangerous
to be used on injured soldiers and that applying ice to
an injured limb to numb it was a preferred method. |
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| His advice seems to have been largely
ignored by the medics on the front line and after the
first few months of the war chloroform was widely used.
During the course of the war 3/4 of a ton was intended
to be issued to the army in the Crimea and used right
down to RMO level. There were some difficulties in the
supply chain (nothing new in that) which meant that all
of it did not reach its destination. |
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The principal problem in the use of
chloroform seems to have been a failure to regulate the amount of chloroform
given and as a consequence overdosing the patient. This
rendered them almost moribund and as they needed an
excessively long time to regain consciousness.
Chloroform was administered either with a Snow's Inhaler
or simply onto a bit of lint held over the patients
mouth and nose. Clover's Inhaler, with which it became
possible to regulate the amount of inhaled anaesthetic,
did not come into use until 1877.
In addition to an EMO ether inhaler there was a Snow's
Inhaler amongst the issued kit at 55FST. |
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