Respiratory Quotes (2 quotes)
Influenza is a distinct disease, recognizable clinically by its epidemic proportions and extreme infectiousness, characterized pathologically by peculiar lesions in the lung, and caused by an unknown virus which gains entry through the respiratory tract.
Describing his findings from two autopsies, reported in a 1919 article. The influenza virus was eventually discovered in 1933 by Smith, Andrews, and Laidlaw. As quoted in Robert D. Collins, 'Dr Goodpasture: “I was not aware of such a connection between lung and kidney disease”', Annals of Diagnostic Pathology (Jun 2010), 14, No. 3, 194-198. [The original article is Goodpasture EW. The significance of certain pulmonary lesions in relation to the etiology of influenza. Am. J. Med. Sci. 1919;158:863–70.]
Of the various anesthetics which have been introduced for surgical use, only two deserve to be considered, and in order of preference they are ether and chloroform. In general, there is no comparison between these agents. Ether is so much safer than chloroform that the latter is fast disappearing in practice. In the present rapid progress of science it can not but be a short while until chloroform will only he employed in a very limited number of cases. The estimated death-rate after ether is 1 in 20,000, in chloroform 1 in 3,000. All of the objections to ether by the advocates of chloroform narcosis—namely, its slowness of action, irritation of the respiratory tract, nausea and vomiting, inflammability, extra quantity required, etc.—fade into insignificance when brought face to face with the fact that about seven lives are sacrificed by chloroform to one by ether.
In A Text-Book on Surgery: General, Operative, and Mechanical (1887), 24.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
