Remarks on the alleged fatal case of chloroform-inhalation.

  • James Young Simpson
Date:
[1848]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the alleged fatal case of chloroform-inhalation. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    should amount to sprinkling cold water on the face, compressing the thorax, or otherwise exciting inspiratory acts. And, if still further measures are required, then doubtlessly artificial respiration should be the measure employed. THE SUPPOSED CASE OF DEATH FROM CHLOROFORM.— professor Simpson's lecture on the case. (From the Scotsman of 9th February 1848.) In our Saturday's paper we gave an account of a case that occun-ed near Newcastle, in which a Coroner's inquest brought in a verdict of death from congestion of the lungs, from chloroform-inhala- tion. The case has excited no small interest among the profession and public. On meeting his class in the University on Monday, Professor Simpson, who had received an account of the inquest, took this, the earliest opportunity he had, of commenting on the case, and clearly showed, from the published and official details, that the unfortunate patient, a girl of fifteen, was destroyed by arti- ficial choking or asphyxia, and not by chloroform-inhalation. We have been enabled to procure an abstract of this important lecture, and have much pleasure in laying it before our readers. The Professor pointed out, in the first place, the small dose em- ployed, and the fact, that at the time of the operation, and imme- diately after it, the girl was not in a state of very deep anaesthesia, as she kicked and moaned, and her breathing and pulse were un- affected. While still torpid and lethargic, however, and perhaps in a state of fainting after the operation, the surgeon unfortunately filled the patient's throat and mouth with water and brandy, with the intention of reviving her. But this fluid she was incapable of swallowing in her partially faint and anaesthetic state. Con- sequently, at the first returning attempt at inspiration, a quantity of the fluid entered the throat, and the patient was instantly and fatally suffocated. She was choked or asphyxiated by her respi- ration being prevented by the layer of fluid placed over the top of the windpipe; and to produce this suffocating or drowning effect in her then torpid state, it mattered not whether the layer of fluid were ten lines or ten fathoms in depth—whether it merely covered and submersed the opening of her windpipe, or covered and sub-
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