Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 516

THOMAS BARTHOLIN (1616-1680) De nivis usu medico observationes variae. Accessit D. Erasmi Bartholini De figura nivis dissertatio. Typis Matthiae Godicchii, sumptibus Petri Haubold 1661 [26] 232 [14] 42 [15] pp., engr. plate. 14.6 cm.

For more information on this author or work, see number: 512

Chapter XXII of this historically important book makes the first known mention of the use of mixtures of ice and snow for freezing to produce surgical anesthesia. The author states that the technique was taught to him by one Marco Aurelio Severino of Naples (see No. 449). In order not to kill the tissues and cause gangrene, the ice-snow mixture was to be applied on the parts in narrow parallel lines. After a quarter of an hour, feeling would be deadened and the part could be cut without pain. This may be the first mention of such a technique since the time of Avicenna. The treatise on snow crystals, by Bartholin's younger brother, Erasmus, is the earliest publication on crystallography, and preceded Boyle on gems (1672) by eleven years. This interesting book also contains a list of Thomas Bartholin's works.

See Related Record(s): 449

Cited references: Cushing B114; Osler 1933; Waller 726; Wellcome II, p. 107

Gift of John Martin, M.D.