Copper Kettle Research Articles

Investigation of an Unrecorded Indigenous Copper Kettle Burial at Cap St-Louis, New Brunswick

This article is the result of an investigation about an unrecorded archaeological find in Cap St-Louis (New Brunswick) in 1940. The find was a Copper Kettle Burial as it was practiced by the Mi’gmaq during the 16th and 17th century. No proper recording or conservation efforts had been deployed then since the Copper Kettle Burial was not well known at the time. Most of the funerary objects have been lost or given as mementos to family or friends of finder. The site has been eroded since 1940 but this investigation permitted Parks Canada to assign it a provenience number and ensure proper protection in the future for the site in case other burials appears at this location. Some objects are located at the Musée Acadien de l’Université de Moncton. In the spirit of reconciliation, the university will give back these funerary objects to the Mi’gmaq of New Brunswick.

Using regional chemical comparisons of European copper to examine its trade to and among Indigenous groups in late 16th and early 17th century Canada: A case study from Nova Scotia and Ontario

Basque kettles and distinctive fragments from them have been found in archeological sites dating from the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th centuries C.E. all the way from the Canadian Maritimes to the lower Great Lakes. Both kettles and their fragments, as well as tools and ornaments made from them, were extensively traded among the Aboriginal communities, following trade routes established long before the arrival of Europeans. Little is known, however, about how these European copper objects were actually exchanged and distributed among the different Aboriginal communities. In this paper we argue that the establishment of metal chemical groups using instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) data can allow us to define groups of artifacts that had been produced using similar raw materials and manufacturing techniques and, thus, provide a refined way to trace similar objects through space and time. The spatial and temporal patterning of group chemistries could then illuminate the nature of the exchange and trade of European copper items, by allowing archeologists to examine which communities were linked through which metal chemistries. In the present study we determine whether or not the same metal chemistries are shared among 59 Basque copper kettle samples found in three burial sites in Nova Scotia and 204 European copper artifacts found at the contemporaneous Ball site, a late 16th century Wendat village. We then explore the implications of the strong chemical connections among these materials for trade among Europeans and the various coastal Aboriginal communities, as well as that between the Wendat of the Ball site and their allies to the east.

Lucien E. Morris, MD, Aqualumnus, Inventor, Academic and Historian

Lucien E. Morris, MD, Aqualumnus, Inventor, Academic and Historian

Vapourisers: Physical principles and classification

Vapourisers have evolved from rudimentary inhalers to the microprocessor controlled, temperature compensated and flow sensing devices, which are universal today. The improvements in the design was influenced by the development of potent inhalational anaesthetics, unique properties of some agents, a deeper understanding of their mechanism of action, inherent flaws in the older vapourisers, mechanical problems due to thymol deposition, factors influencing their output such as temperature and pressure variations. It is important to review the principles governing the design of the vapouriser to gain insight into their working. It is fascinating to know how some of the older vapourisers, popularly used in the past, functioned. The descendant of Oxford Miniature Vapourizer, the Triservice vapouriser is still a part of the military anaesthesia draw over equipment meant for field use whereas the Copper Kettle the first precision device is the fore-runner of the Tec 6 and Aladdin cassette vapouriser. Anaesthesia trainees if exposed to draw over techniques get a deeper understanding of equipment and improved skills for disaster situations. In the recent advanced versions of the vapouriser a central processing unit in the anaesthetic machine controls the operation by continuously monitoring and adjusting fresh gas flow through the vapouriser to maintain desired concentration of the vapour.

Die Entwicklung des Vapors – Eine Frage der präzisen Dosierung

Since the beginning of anaesthesia it was well known that anaesthetic agents administered by inhalation must be capable of existing in gaseous form. For vaporization various types tried to work accurately. Since oxygen was available there could be realized new concepts like the principles of injection or bubble through. With Copper Kettle (1948) for ether and chloroform and Draeger Vapor (1958) for Halothane accurate administration of volatile anaesthetics was available. Today vaporizers are part of anaesthetic machines.

The Abajian Scales John Abajian Ed Brazell, and the University of Vermont's 1956 to 1959 Halothane Research

Gino Dente leans back in his favorite chair and thinks back to a conversation over a half-century ago. “We had a student visiting us from England, and he mentioned a Dr. Raventos and asked if I had ever used halothane. Well, I told him that I had never even heard of it,” recalls Dente, then a 39-year-old Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology at the University of Vermont (UVM). “That piqued my curiosity though, so I decided to write a letter to Dr. Raventos and ask him some questions, and a short time later he sent me two bottles of halothane. We had absolutely no idea how to use it. I gave one bottle to Ernie Mills at the DeGoesbriand (Bishop DeGoesbriand Hospital, Burlington, VT) and kept one bottle for myself at the Fletcher (Mary Fletcher Hospital, Burlington, VT) and we tried it.” So began UVM’s halothane research study in November 1956. One of a handful of centers in the United States studying the agent, by mid-1959 UVM anesthesiologists and CRNAs had performed over 5,000 halothane anesthetics and perfected its delivery with an innovative modification of the copper kettle. The publication of their experience in an October 1959 JAMA article, emphasizing the then-controversial importance of precision vaporization, contributed to the acceptance of halothane into clinical practice in the United States.1

Outpatient Continuous Peripheral Nerve Catheters

In Response: We appreciate the comments of Drs. Chidiac and Perov (1) regarding our series of outpatients with continuous peripheral nerve blocks (CPNB). It is reassuring to learn that other programs have produced results similar to our own with respect to outpatient CPNB management. As more institutions adopt these protocols, patient care will be improved and the need for in-hospital pain control will be reduced. We agree that the use of lower anesthetic concentrations during catheter infusion is beneficial. In fact, after sending more than 1,000 patients home with CPNB, we also have transitioned to the use of 0.125% bupivicaine for all outpatient catheters. This change was due in large part to reports by patients of being “too numb.” We have observed that 0.125% bupivicaine provides adequate analgesia while sparing motor function in most cases. With respect to nerve stimulation, we could not disagree more strongly with Chidiac and Perov. For many years, nerve stimulation has been the “de facto” gold standard for peripheral nerve blocks because it was the only alternative to paresthesia techniques. This is despite evidence that nerve stimulators vary greatly in their accuracy of current output (2). Much worse, motor response (even at currents of 1 mA) is not a reliable indicator of direct needle contact with the nerve (3). As for the “further refinement” of stimulating catheters mentioned by Chidiac and Perov, we would direct the readers to recent publications comparing nerve stimulating versus nonstimulating catheters (4,5). These studies do not show any benefit of stimulating over nonstimulating catheters. The largest of these studies (419 patients), concluded, “a convincing argument has yet to be made for the routine use of the stimulating catheter …” (6). Ultrasound has been a welcome relief for those of us who are seeking a better alternative to NS techniques. In 2005, Marhofer reported more than 4000 blocks performed using only ultrasound guidance with success rates approaching 100% (7). Since that time, his numbers have almost certainly increased. Regarding ultrasound techniques, Marhofer accurately states, “Nerves are not blocked by the needle but by the local anesthetic.” Likewise, at the University of Utah, we stopped using the nerve stimulator over 2 years ago. We too, have performed over 3500 blocks (2000 catheters) using only ultrasound guidance. It should be no surprise that a technique successful for single injections would also work for catheter placement. The result has been a generation of residents from our program who have learned to “stay away from the nerve with the needle but reach the nerve with local anesthetic.” A prospective study at our institution shows a success rate of 97% for single blocks and catheters placed using only ultrasound guidance (8). This same study shows the cost savings (by eliminating the cost of stimulating needles) to be more than $16,000/yr when performing more than five nerve blocks per day. Ultrasound is ideal for catheter placement as a “stand alone” technique. We believe the nerve stimulation will soon take its place beside the copper kettle as a technique of only historical interest. In other words, yesterday’s “gold standard” has become today’s “old standard.” Jeffrey D. Swenson, MD Byron Bankhead, MD Department of Anesthesiology University of Utah Orthopaedic Center University of Utah Salt Lake City, Utah [email protected]

Copper Kettle Revisited

An increasing dissatisfaction with available equipment for the vaporization of liquid anesthetics led to a focused effort to design a new and improved vaporizer. Deficiencies in existing apparatus were identified as a lack of vernier control over small increments for gradually increasing the concentration of the vapor, and the lack of a steady reproducible vapor output due to the wide variation in temperature of the vaporizing liquid Therefore a new apparatus has been designed to provide reproducible conditions for effective vaporization and vernier control over small increments in concentration of vapor offered to the patient. The important modifications for attaining these desired conditions are in the circuit design, the liquid container, and the vaporizing surface. Since there are still many occasions for which liquid anesthetics are being used as the agent of choice, it seems desirable to have available a device that provides the physician with discrete control over the vapor volumes and concentrations of these agents.

Notable Names in Anaesthesia

Notable Names in Anaesthesia. J. R. Maltby (ed.). Royal Society of Medicine Press Ltd.: London, UK, 2002, 254 pp; indexed, illustrated ISBN: 1-85315-512-8; Price £19.50 In his introduction, Roger Maltby recalls how he noted the lack of inclusion of any anaesthetists in Bailey and Bishop's Notable Names in Medicine and Surgery and how this (disgraceful) omission was the stimulus for producing this book. I suppose as anaesthetists we would not find this omission surprising. However, we should serendipitously be grateful, as it has led to the production of this enormously engaging book. In all there are 76 mini biographies of some of the most famous names associated with anaesthesia; the majority are by Roger Maltby himself whilst some are autobiographical (e.g. John Nunn, Leslie Rendell-Baker and Cecil Gray). Non-anaesthetists are obviously included (clearly we are not so parochial as our medical and surgical colleagues) such as Bier, Esmarch, Melzack, Wall and Koller as well as manufacturers such as Foregger and King. It should be said that the emphasis is on those who produced eponymous devices, books or manoeuvres rather than those prominent in the research field. Inevitably one will ponder on the missing names as well as those who are perhaps less worthy of inclusion. So, although benefactors such as Lord Nuffield are rightly included, Henry Isaiah Dorr, who preceded him by endowing the first Professorial Chair in Anaesthesia in the USA is not, UK anaesthetists have little contact with the Berman airway or the Miller laryngoscope blade although as an anaesthetist working in Canada, Roger Maltby obviously has to maintain a different perspective. However, I would certainly have wished to see a monograph on Lucien Morris and his Copper Kettle and on Hale Enderby, the pioneer of ‘hypotensive anaesthesia’. Nevertheless, this book is totally engrossing. The monograph on Ringer and Hartmann (mainly taken form Alfred Lee's 1981 paper in Anaesthesia) should be compulsory reading for all juniors who must be bemused by the fact that Lactated Ringer's USP and Hartmann's solution BP (both with virtually the same electrolyte content) are named after the Englishman in the USA and the American in the UK! There are also wonderful thumbnail sketches of major developments in anaesthesia and how they came about including the circumstances behind the foundation of the Nuffield Chair of Anaesthesia in Oxford. This is described in some detail in the monographs on Mackintosh and Lord Nuffield. Perhaps the most fascinating parts are those outlining the development of equipment, especially those used in every day practice to this day. The events surrounding the invention of the laryngeal mask, Mackintosh laryngoscope, Mapleson D and Bain circuits should remind anaesthetists to always keep a ‘prepared mind’ for the possibility of future inventions to benefit the practice of anaesthesia. Having said that, the restrictions we now encounter in clinical practice, the disappearance of the small manufacturing companies and well-equipped medical engineering departments in hospitals, as well as the enormous cost of patent protection, means that we are unlikely to find many names to add to those in this book in future years. That is a pity. D. W. Green a1London, UK

Assessing the Past and Shaping the Future of Anesthesiology

Assessing the Past and Shaping the Future of Anesthesiology

The Copper Kettle: A historical perspective

Until 1952, the administration of inhaled volatile anesthetics was inexact because vaporizers in general use were not calibrated for either concentration or volume of vapor produced. These devices diverted a variable portion of fresh gas flow either through or over the liquid to be vaporized, but they lacked vernier or fine control. Therefore, changes in the concentration of the anesthetic vapor were not easily controlled. Dr. Lucien E. Morris standardized the administration of volatile anesthetics with his invention of the Copper Kettle, which produced known volumes of saturated vapor, then diluted to calculated concentrations necessary for anesthesia. To achieve this, modifications had to be made in the liquid container, circuit design, and vaporizing surfaces in use at the time. Morris' design incorporated a separately metered flow of carrier gas through the vaporizer to produce known volumes of saturated vapor for introduction into the fresh gas flow delivery.

The 34th Rovenstine Lecture. 40 years behind the mask: safety revisited.

The 34th Rovenstine Lecture. 40 years behind the mask: safety revisited.

The Copper Kettle

Until 1952, the administration of inhaled volatile anesthetics was inexact because vaporizers in general use were not calibrated for either concentration or volume of vapor produced. These devices diverted a variable portion of fresh gas flow either through or over the liquid to be vaporized, but they lacked vernier or fine control. Therefore, changes in the concentration of the anesthetic vapor were not easily controlled. Dr. Lucien E. Morris standardized the administration of volatile anesthetics with his invention of the Copper Kettle, which produced known volumes of saturated vapor, then diluted to calculated concentrations necessary for anesthesia. To achieve this, modifications had to be made in the liquid container, circuit design, and vaporizing surfaces in use at the time. Morris' design incorporated a separately metered flow of carrier gas through the vaporizer to produce known volumes of saturated vapor for introduction into the fresh gas flow delivery.

The Use of the Copper Kettle Vaporizer in Closed System Carbon Dioxide Absorption Anaesthesia

The Use of the Copper Kettle Vaporizer in Closed System Carbon Dioxide Absorption Anaesthesia

Flow through the Copper Kettle Flowmeter

Flow through the Copper Kettle Flowmeter

The Four Lives of a Micmac Copper Pot

What to the seventeenth-century French was little more than a mundane article of commerce became, to the Acadian Micmac, an institution with noteworthy economic, ceremonial, spiritual, and demographic connotations. Utilizing portable kettles, Micrmac households became less inclined to camp near their immobile wooden cauldrons which now served a diminishing function as the symbolic locus of settlement. The copper kettle thus afforded these people the opportunity to move about at random as they hunted game for the fur trade. Two years after his return home to France, in 1614, the French Jesuit Pierre Biard set down his memoirs of three stormy years spent in Acadia. A bitter man who had been ill-used by the commandant at Port-Royal, Charles de Biencourt, Biard's relation is clearly self-serving. Nonetheless, despite this blemish, it remains an extremely valuable commentary on early Indian and white relations. Contained within its sparse prose, for instance, we find a list of goods which were customarily exchanged in the early seventeenth-century trade between the two ethnic groups. All this new France is divided into different tribes, he intoned, each one having its own separate language and country. They assemble in the Summer to trade with us, principally at the great river [St. Lawrence]. To this place come also several other tribes from afar off. They barter their skins of beaver, otter, deer, marten, seal, etc., for bread, peas, beans, prunes, tobacco, etc.; kettles, hatchets, iron arrow-points, awls, puncheons, cloaks, blankets, and all other such commodities as the French bring them (Thwaites 1896-1901:3:69). Beguiling in its dryness, this abbreviated catalog was in reality the living anatomy of one of the most revolutionary institutions in North American contact history. What in pre-Columbian times had been a non-profit, balanced, reciprocal exchange of necessities and luxuries between Northeastern and Eastern Subarctic tribes and bands was completely overhauled in

Accuracy of halothane vaporizers in clinical use.

The inaccuracy of several of the Mark ii vaporizers indicates the need for periodic maintenance. Cleansing of the spindle and soaking with ether were effective in restoring one vaporizer to accuracy and had no effect on another already accurate one. Recalibration by the manufacturer resulted in minimal improvement in accuracy after our cleansing. It is suggested that cleansing could be used as a temporary measure but that periodic recalibration as recommended by the manufacturer should be carried out. The Drager-Vapor and Copper Kettle vaporizers apparently need little maintenance. Two new Mark iiis, the Mark ii Fluotecs, and one Copper Kettle vaporizer were the only ones which delivered no halothane when shut off, although all vaporizers studied had a specific mechanism to prevent halothane from leaking into the bypass gas. In the face of back pressure the Fluotec Mark iis delivered halothane at a 0 setting. If thereis a hepatitie reaction to halothane, and if this is a hypersensitivity phenomenon, then many patients coming to the operating theatre may be sensitized inadvertently. The new Venturi circulator creates a very high back pressure and results in a lower concentration delivered by each of the vaporizers studied in accordance with the physical principles outlined.

Serious explosion during cleaning of a copper kettle.

Serious explosion during cleaning of a copper kettle.

HALOTHANE IMPURITIES AND THE COPPER KETTLE.

Accepted for publication May 8, 1964. Received from Department of Surgery, Section of Anesthesia, Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital and Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Albin is Assistant Professor of Anesthesia, Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Dr. Horrocks is a Research Associate. Department of Neurochemistry, Cleveland Psychiatric Institute and Dr. Kretchmer is Associate Professor of Anesthesia, Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

Practical use of the copper kettle.

Practical use of the copper kettle.