The Wood Library-Museumʼs 1858 Edition of John Snowʼs On Chloroform and Other Anaesthetics

The original 1858 edition of John Snowʼs On Chloroform and Other Anaesthetics, from which came the Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology reprints in 1971 and 1989, was donated to the Wood Library-Museum by Ralph Waters of Madison, Wisconsin, in 1967. The book contains a message of appreciation to Waters, dated October 1937, with the signatures of J. Blomfield, Charles King, and R. A. Macintosh as representatives of anesthesiology in England. Correspondence exists in the archives of the University of Wisconsin-Madison between Macintosh, Professor of Anaesthetics in Oxford, and Waters, Associate Professor in Madison. This reveals that Waters, during his visit to England in 1936, inspired British anesthetists to discover more of Snowʼs early contributions to anesthesiology, even though Waters himself did not possess On Chloroform and Other Anaesthetics. King, a manufacturer of anesthetic equipment, found a copy in the hands of Blomfield, an anesthetist at St. Georgeʼs Hospital, London, where John Snow had worked. It was this copy that they presented to Waters, and that was delivered to Waters by hand when Watersʼ resident, Ivan Taylor, returned from Oxford to Madison. Blomfieldʼs ownership of the book, in addition to his position as president of the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland, explains why the inscription is in his handwriting.