Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1428

WALTER CHANNING (1786-1876) A treatise on etherization in childbirth. William D. Ticknor 1848 vii, 400 pp. 23.8 cm.

Channing, brother of the famous preacher and grandson of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his postgraduate education in Europe and then returned to practice in Boston. Channing became the first professor of obstetrics at Harvard in 1815 and was later dean of the medical school. He was also a founder of the Boston Lying-in Hospital and a coeditor of the Boston medical and surgical journal. Sir James Young Simpson (see No. 1764 ff.) was the first physician to use ether anesthesia in obstetrical cases and Channing was the first to do likewise in America. Channing published an early paper on the subject in 1847 and followed it the next year with the present monograph. He planned the treatise carefully, presenting both the pros and cons of obstetrical anesthesia as well as detailed instructions on his methods and techniques. The over 500 case histories included in the book provide strong support to his arguments for the use of ether anesthesia.

See Related Record(s): 1764

Cited references: Garrison-Morton 5661; Waller 1894; Wellcome II, p. 325

Gift of John Martin, M.D.