The development of inhalation anaesthesia : with special reference to the years 1846-1900... / [Barbara M. Duncum].
- Duncum, Barbara M.
- Date:
- 1947
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The development of inhalation anaesthesia : with special reference to the years 1846-1900... / [Barbara M. Duncum]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
453/664 page 433
![The eagerly expected report of the Second Hyderabad Chloroform Commission was completed in December 1889 and published in sections in the Lancet between January and June 1890.1 All Lawrie's original contentions appeared to be substantiated by this Report : ' Chloroform, when given continuously by any means which ensures its free dilution with air causes a gradual fall in the mean blood-pressure, provided the animal's respiration is not impeded in any way, and it continues to breathe quietly without struggling or involuntary holding of the breath—as almost always happens when the chloroform is sufficiently diluted. As this fall continues the animal first becomes insensible then the respiration gradually ceases, and lastly, the heart stops beating. If the chloroform is Fig. 115.—THE HYDERABAD CHLOROFORM CONE Invariably used by Lawrie and his assistants. less diluted the fall is more rapid, but is always gradual, so long as the other conditions are maintained ; and however concen- trated the chloroform may be, it never causes sudden death from stoppage of the heart. The greater the degree of dilution the less rapid the fall, until a degree of dilution is reached, which no longer appreciably lowers the blood-pressure or produces anaesthesia.' On the question of the influence of the vagal nerves upon the heart's action as a factor in chloroform anaesthesia the Commission stated : ' The experiments in which deliberate irritation of the vagi was carried on during anaesthesia show unmistakably that irrita- tion of these nerves diminishes rather than enhances the danger of anaesthetics. . . . ' The theory which has hitherto been accepted is that the danger in chloroform administration consists in the slowing or stoppage of the heart by vagus inhibition [cf. pp. 396-8]. This 1 Lancet, 1890, i, 149-59, 42I~9> 486-510, 1140-2, 1369-88.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20457200_0457.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
