On the use of chloroform as an internal remedy / by A.P. Merrill.

  • A. P. Merrill
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the use of chloroform as an internal remedy / by A.P. Merrill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    even in such cases general convulsions and cerebral congestion mny be sns- pended by full doses of chloroform, affording time and opportunity for the action of other remedies, and without which temporary relief death would be inevitable. Such is the power of chloroform, when taken into the stomach, over every kind of convulsive movement, and such the certainty of relief to every form of congestion, that it would appear reasonable to infer that there is a necessary connection between the two, placing them in the rela- tion of effect and cause. It is difficult to understand, otlTerwise, why in one case congestion should be relieved by the remedy, and why in another the same treatment should relieve, equally, the convulsive movement de- pending upon local irritation. Objection is sometimes made to the introduction of unmixed chloroform into the stomach, on account of its highly excitant quality. But experi- ment proves it to be much less stimulating to the mucous membrane than to the skin, and in no case have I observed anything more than very tem- porary effects upon the mouth and throat, which soon subside. The vehi- cles we are advised to employ in its administration, can only hold the remedy in temporary suspension, and in most of the cases requiring large doses it is quite impossible for the patient to swallow them. Sometimes a single drop falling into the folds of the neck will cause vesication, while a fluidrachm passing into the stomach gives only a slight inconvenience by its stimulation of the mouth and throat. In the case of a child five weeks old, to whom I gave from one to three drops mixed in breast-milk, several times a day for five successive days, the tongue became red and a little swollen, and there was at times some difficulty in swallowing, but these troubles soon disappeared when the medicine was suspended. As in the administration of other remedies, the dose of chloroform must be varied according to the nature of the case, and more than with most other remedies may be the range of quantities given. I have administered it in doses of a single drop to two fluidrachras, and have sometimes repeated it at short intervals; and I have reason to believe that the cases of infantile convulsions in which I have given from one-half to a full drachm, might have been relieved in the inception of the disease by fifteen or twenty drops. But when convulsions have continued for an hour or more, the smaller doses will have no perceptible effect. Indeed, relief m snch cases is obtained only by such quantity as will produce sleep. As long as the eyes continue wide open there is only partial success, but when the eyelids close it may be considered evidence that the system is well under the influence of the remedy; and it sometimes happens that a considerable part of the dose is eructated, in the form of vapour, while the patient sleeps. The sleep continues from one to four hours, and is sometimes fol- lowed by great restlessness and jactitation for an hour or more, when the patient is at ease again and ^ep returns.
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