"This is a true story of how the Bible helped advance science and
alleviate needless suffering. It’s the story of the man who instigated the use of chloroform in surgery – the surgeon and obstetrician, Dr. James Simpson.....
So one way or another, Simpson had found that chloroform (CHCl3), which had been reported by a French chemist in 1831, was effective and reliable. He experimented with it as a general anesthetic for childbirth, and published a paper on it in 1847: Account of a New Anaesthetic Agent. Its use thereafter expanded rapidly in Europe – especially after Queen Victoria bore Prince Leopold with its use in 1853.
Yet some doctors did not jump at the opportunity to use anesthesia, ...Some argued that pain served a medical purpose. A few doctors, for some strange reason, voiced religious objections to the use of anesthetics. They argued it was against nature or against the will of God. Here’s where Simpson found an argument from Scripture. He turned to Genesis 2, where God put Adam to sleep while performing surgery on him to create Eve from his side. If God could use a kind of anesthesia before the fall of man, why could not we use such a technique today?
Tiner explains, “Simpson believed the principle that God did not rejoice in needless pain still applied.”
This was not an isolated application of Scripture for Simpson. Tiner goes on to explain that Simpson was an avid Christian, a Bible scholar, and soul-winner. He even wrote a tract explaining the gospel of Jesus Christ to non-Christians.
Chloroform was a major advance in surgery. Patients think nothing of going into an Adamic sleep while being cut open for operations that before would have caused screams of pain, only to awaken sewn up and unaware of the trauma. Anesthesia has undergone many advances since 1847. Chloroform can be toxic in high doses and must be used with care, but it is still used in primitive situations.
In Men of Science, Men of God (1988, p. 52), Henry M. Morris wrote that Simpson could have boasted about his discovery of chloroform, but exclaimed that his greatest discovery was, “That I have a Savior!” Morris quoted the end of that gospel tract Simpson wrote. It said:
So one way or another, Simpson had found that chloroform (CHCl3), which had been reported by a French chemist in 1831, was effective and reliable. He experimented with it as a general anesthetic for childbirth, and published a paper on it in 1847: Account of a New Anaesthetic Agent. Its use thereafter expanded rapidly in Europe – especially after Queen Victoria bore Prince Leopold with its use in 1853.
Yet some doctors did not jump at the opportunity to use anesthesia, ...Some argued that pain served a medical purpose. A few doctors, for some strange reason, voiced religious objections to the use of anesthetics. They argued it was against nature or against the will of God. Here’s where Simpson found an argument from Scripture. He turned to Genesis 2, where God put Adam to sleep while performing surgery on him to create Eve from his side. If God could use a kind of anesthesia before the fall of man, why could not we use such a technique today?
Tiner explains, “Simpson believed the principle that God did not rejoice in needless pain still applied.”
This was not an isolated application of Scripture for Simpson. Tiner goes on to explain that Simpson was an avid Christian, a Bible scholar, and soul-winner. He even wrote a tract explaining the gospel of Jesus Christ to non-Christians.
Chloroform was a major advance in surgery. Patients think nothing of going into an Adamic sleep while being cut open for operations that before would have caused screams of pain, only to awaken sewn up and unaware of the trauma. Anesthesia has undergone many advances since 1847. Chloroform can be toxic in high doses and must be used with care, but it is still used in primitive situations.
In Men of Science, Men of God (1988, p. 52), Henry M. Morris wrote that Simpson could have boasted about his discovery of chloroform, but exclaimed that his greatest discovery was, “That I have a Savior!” Morris quoted the end of that gospel tract Simpson wrote. It said:
But again I looked and saw Jesus, my substitute, scourged in my stead and dying on the cross for me. I looked and cried and was forgiven. And it seems to be my duty to tell you of that Savior, to see if you will not also look and live. ‘He was wounded for our transgressions, … and with His stripes we are healed’ (Isaiah 53:5)" CEH
