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.
458/664 page 438
![of Syme , who taught that plenty of the drug should be used while others used the same term to designate ' chloroform dropped on lint after the manner advocated by the dosi- metric school, who teach that by dropping chloroform literally guttatim on lint the utmost safety is ensured '. In considering the Lancet's finding ' that chloroform was employed some six times more frequently than ether it must be remembered that a proportion of the answers to the question- naire came from the Continent where (in 1891) ether was virtu- ally not used (cf. Chapter XIV), and from parts of Scotland ' where chloroform is used almost exclusively '. Furthermore the Lancet found that ' an examination of the record of private practice indicated . . . that chloroform is used more frequently in that department of practice than is any other anaesthetic '. As a general conclusion the Lancet stated : ' It would, therefore, appear that in England and Wales chloroform is responsible for a larger number of deaths and of dangerous cases than is ether. In India, and the Tropics gener- ally, ether is not used, and chloroform is very largely employed, with a very low death-rate ; on the Continent, the death- rate is in favour of ether f1], but it is at present difficult to gauge the relative frequency with which the two substances are em- ployed. In the United States ether is widely used, but here again we cannot estimate the number of times that anaesthetics in general and chloroform in particular are used with sufficient accuracy to draw conclusions. In Scotland . . . there is no reliable evidence of how many deaths under chloroform really occur, although it is believed that deaths are fairly frequent.' 2 As to the determining causes of death under chloroform, the answers to the Lancet's questionnaire bore out the findings of the Chloroform Committee of 1864 and the Glasgow Committee of 1880 : ' The larger proportion of deaths are reported as having resulted from initial heart failure, in opposition to the view to which the physiological researches of the Hyderabad Commission have led.' 1 This assertion was based on Julliard's figure for mortality under ether, viz. one death in 14,987 administrations. 2 ' As regards Scotland ', the Lancet stated, ' the present condition of the law as to inquiries into the circumstances of deaths under anaesthetics greatly interferes with accurate information being obtained upon this matter.'](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20457200_0462.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
