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HENRY HILL HICKMAN.
1195 authorities themselves, if framing assessments unaided, would have behaved with greater sympathy. Finally, if all else fails, if the hospital is heavily assessed and if all appeal and argument have been in vain, there is yet one possibility left. By virtue of Section 131 of the Public Health Act of 1875 an English local authority can, for the purpose of providing hospital accommodation for its district, enter into agreements with the managers of hospitals. Section 64 of the Public Health Act of 1925 extends this power to include the making of reasonable subscriptions or donations to a voluntary hospital "if the local authority are satisfied that by so doing they will maintain or extend or increase the efficiency of hospital accommodation for the sick inhabitants of The expenditure under this 1925 the district." is limited to a penny rate, but it seems that provision this limit has not been approached. A memorandum attached to Mr. ORDE’s report estimates that in the past our hospitals have received by way of preferential rating approximately £250,000 per annum, whereas, if they received subscriptions or donations up to the full limit of the penny rate, they would receive approximately a million pounds.
Hickman, who had
gone to
Paris,
disappointed and died shortly after England.
was
grievously
his return to
another 30 years before nitrous oxide was taken seriously, and it is amusing to read in THE LANCET of 1868 the reports of meetings and demonstrations and the varied opinions expressed The seed sown in France by Hickman may have borne some fruit, for it was Dr. T. W. Evans, of Paris, who brought the new ansesthetic to London. 24,000 cases were already on record in America, and to these Dr. Evans added another 1000. He administered gas to 11 patients at the Dental Hospital, Soho-square, on March 31st, to several patients at the house of Mr. Hepburn next day, and to eight more patients at the Dental Hospital on April 2nd. On April 6th Mr. Underwood brought these experiments to the notice of the members of the Odontological Society of Great Britain. So enthusiastic was Dr. Evans that he left the sum of £100 to the Dental Hospital to investigate this anaesthetic, or-if it did not provee satisfactory-any other method of relieving the pain of minor operations. A committee of the society was appointed to investigate the matter, and reported in December2 to a crowded meeting. The advantages put forward for nitrous oxide anaesthesia were the HENRY HILL HICKMAN. of its action and of the patient’s recovery.. ON April 2nd of next year falls the centenary of rapidity and there appeared to be no ill-effects and no contrathe death of one who, in his own way, may almost indications to its use. Its expense, the difficulty of be called a martyr to science. HENRY HILL HICKMAN and transporting it and the complicated died at the early age of 30, broken-hearted at his preparing for its administration constituted, apparatus necessary failure to obtain any support for nitrous oxide a grave list of objections. Our considered however, anaesthesia. He was born in 1800 at Lady Halton, was guarded, but not so gloomy as that of the opinion near Bromfield in Shropshire, qualified M.R.C.S. in of the Medical Society, Dr. B. W. Richardson, 1820, and practised at Ludlow. Soon afterwards he President was at pains to assure his audience that nitrous who began a series of experiments on animals with a view was one of the " best known, least wonderful, to rendering them unconscious before an operation. and most dangerous of all substances that had been He first produced semi-asphyxiation by the exclusion for the production of general anæsthesia." 3 of atmospheric air and next rendered dogs insensible applied The administration of laughing gas," remarked our by nitrous oxide and carbonic dioxide gases. While " at that meeting, " is becoming a they were unconscious he excised their ears and representative for amateurs," and a most unsuitable pastime amputated their legs, and then dressed the wounds he certainly regarded it. and noted the time they took to heal. Encouraged by Through all this excitement Hickman was forgotten, the success of these experiments, in 1825 he removed and it was not until 1912 that his memory was revived to Shifnal and endeavoured to demonstrate the results Mr. C. J. S. Thompson, for many years curator by of his investigations to his medical brethren, but they of the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum.4 A received his views with derision and condemned them hundred years too late to save him disappointment as dangerous and useless. As the medical press refused to publish the results of his experiments he and despair, his countrymen seek to do him honour. made them known in 1824 in a letter to a sympathetic it is proposed to renew his tombstone, to place a. memorial tablet in Bromfield Parish Church, to layman, Mr. T. A. Knight, of Downton Castle, who had them printed as a pamphlet. Unable to experi- procure a portrait for the Royal Society of Medicine, ment, as he hoped, on a human subject in England, he and-if funds permit-to establish a Hickman Prize The committee decided to lay the matter before the physicians offor original work in anaesthesia. consists of Lord Sir StClair Dawson (chairman), France, and with that object he petitioned King of the Editors the British Thomson (vice-chairman), Charles X. to be allowed to perform his experiments Journal and The Lancet, Dr. Dudley Buxton, before the leading medical men in Paris. In his letter he alludes to his " discovery " as one he had " entirely Dr. H. R. Spencer, Dr. Z. Mennell, Rev. Prebendary originated " himself, and by means of which he was W. Joyce, Mr. C. J. S. Thompson, Mr. Ashley Daly, " able to produce insensibility by the introduction of and the secretaries, Dr. W. J. McCardie and Dr. Cecil certain gases into the lungs." The letter was referred Hughes. The fund will remain open until the end to the Royal Academy of Medicine, who considered it of January, and subscribers will then be consulted by at a meeting on Oct. 21st, 1828, and selected the committee on the disposal of the fund. SubscripMr. Greradin to report on the matter. A committee tions of any amount up to two guineas should be sent was appointed to consider the subject, and although to the hon. treasurer, Mr. V. Warren Low, 76, Harleythe announcement of Hickman’s caused a street, W. 1. It
was
Ianaesthesia
oxide
pastime
Medical
discovery
sensation it was received with contempt by the members, with the exception of Baron Larrey, who offered himself for the experiment. Nothing further was done in the matter, and it was allowed to drop.
1868, i., 481. 2 Ibid., 1868, ii., 779. 3 Ibid., 1868, i., 507. Brit. Med. Jour., 1912, i., 843. 1 THE LANCET,
4
Hickman, who had
gone to
Paris,
disappointed and died shortly after England.
was
grievously
his return to
another 30 years before nitrous oxide was taken seriously, and it is amusing to read in THE LANCET of 1868 the reports of meetings and demonstrations and the varied opinions expressed The seed sown in France by Hickman may have borne some fruit, for it was Dr. T. W. Evans, of Paris, who brought the new ansesthetic to London. 24,000 cases were already on record in America, and to these Dr. Evans added another 1000. He administered gas to 11 patients at the Dental Hospital, Soho-square, on March 31st, to several patients at the house of Mr. Hepburn next day, and to eight more patients at the Dental Hospital on April 2nd. On April 6th Mr. Underwood brought these experiments to the notice of the members of the Odontological Society of Great Britain. So enthusiastic was Dr. Evans that he left the sum of £100 to the Dental Hospital to investigate this anaesthetic, or-if it did not provee satisfactory-any other method of relieving the pain of minor operations. A committee of the society was appointed to investigate the matter, and reported in December2 to a crowded meeting. The advantages put forward for nitrous oxide anaesthesia were the HENRY HILL HICKMAN. of its action and of the patient’s recovery.. ON April 2nd of next year falls the centenary of rapidity and there appeared to be no ill-effects and no contrathe death of one who, in his own way, may almost indications to its use. Its expense, the difficulty of be called a martyr to science. HENRY HILL HICKMAN and transporting it and the complicated died at the early age of 30, broken-hearted at his preparing for its administration constituted, apparatus necessary failure to obtain any support for nitrous oxide a grave list of objections. Our considered however, anaesthesia. He was born in 1800 at Lady Halton, was guarded, but not so gloomy as that of the opinion near Bromfield in Shropshire, qualified M.R.C.S. in of the Medical Society, Dr. B. W. Richardson, 1820, and practised at Ludlow. Soon afterwards he President was at pains to assure his audience that nitrous who began a series of experiments on animals with a view was one of the " best known, least wonderful, to rendering them unconscious before an operation. and most dangerous of all substances that had been He first produced semi-asphyxiation by the exclusion for the production of general anæsthesia." 3 of atmospheric air and next rendered dogs insensible applied The administration of laughing gas," remarked our by nitrous oxide and carbonic dioxide gases. While " at that meeting, " is becoming a they were unconscious he excised their ears and representative for amateurs," and a most unsuitable pastime amputated their legs, and then dressed the wounds he certainly regarded it. and noted the time they took to heal. Encouraged by Through all this excitement Hickman was forgotten, the success of these experiments, in 1825 he removed and it was not until 1912 that his memory was revived to Shifnal and endeavoured to demonstrate the results Mr. C. J. S. Thompson, for many years curator by of his investigations to his medical brethren, but they of the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum.4 A received his views with derision and condemned them hundred years too late to save him disappointment as dangerous and useless. As the medical press refused to publish the results of his experiments he and despair, his countrymen seek to do him honour. made them known in 1824 in a letter to a sympathetic it is proposed to renew his tombstone, to place a. memorial tablet in Bromfield Parish Church, to layman, Mr. T. A. Knight, of Downton Castle, who had them printed as a pamphlet. Unable to experi- procure a portrait for the Royal Society of Medicine, ment, as he hoped, on a human subject in England, he and-if funds permit-to establish a Hickman Prize The committee decided to lay the matter before the physicians offor original work in anaesthesia. consists of Lord Sir StClair Dawson (chairman), France, and with that object he petitioned King of the Editors the British Thomson (vice-chairman), Charles X. to be allowed to perform his experiments Journal and The Lancet, Dr. Dudley Buxton, before the leading medical men in Paris. In his letter he alludes to his " discovery " as one he had " entirely Dr. H. R. Spencer, Dr. Z. Mennell, Rev. Prebendary originated " himself, and by means of which he was W. Joyce, Mr. C. J. S. Thompson, Mr. Ashley Daly, " able to produce insensibility by the introduction of and the secretaries, Dr. W. J. McCardie and Dr. Cecil certain gases into the lungs." The letter was referred Hughes. The fund will remain open until the end to the Royal Academy of Medicine, who considered it of January, and subscribers will then be consulted by at a meeting on Oct. 21st, 1828, and selected the committee on the disposal of the fund. SubscripMr. Greradin to report on the matter. A committee tions of any amount up to two guineas should be sent was appointed to consider the subject, and although to the hon. treasurer, Mr. V. Warren Low, 76, Harleythe announcement of Hickman’s caused a street, W. 1. It
was
Ianaesthesia
oxide
pastime
Medical
discovery
sensation it was received with contempt by the members, with the exception of Baron Larrey, who offered himself for the experiment. Nothing further was done in the matter, and it was allowed to drop.
1868, i., 481. 2 Ibid., 1868, ii., 779. 3 Ibid., 1868, i., 507. Brit. Med. Jour., 1912, i., 843. 1 THE LANCET,
4