“So deplorably ignorant was I, pending the arrival of books which I had ordered from England and France, that I availed myself, in my first operations, of the earliest moment to operate, lest the patients should escape from my influence. But it soon became apparent that, instead of this, each trial increased my influence, and the sleep was easier induced daily, till at last a few passes sufficed to produce coma. New and unlooked for phenomena presented themselves daily; and it was very agreeable for me to imagine that I was making original discoveries and observations. But, alas! with the works of Puysegur, Deleuze, Bertrand, Loubert, Dupotet, Teste, Colquhoun, Newnham, Townshend, Sandby, the Zoist, &c., came the mortifying knowledge that I had only, for the most part, been repeating what had been equally well done, and faithfully recorded long ago. But it was something to have reduced painless surgery to a regular system by this time, sufficient for the wants of the people of Bengal generally.”