Chloroform : how shall we ensure safety in its administration? / by Patrick Black, M.D.

  • Black, Patrick, 1813-1879.
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Chloroform : how shall we ensure safety in its administration? / by Patrick Black, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    his consciousness, there would be the greatest danger of asphyxia in either case : and the experience of the profession has already furnished us with a fatal illustration in both these circumstances. As the question we have been considering is of the highest importance in a medico-legal point of view, it may be interesting to examine the conclusions which were arrived at by the Commission which was appointed in Paris to enquire into and report on the fatal case which happened at Boulogne.* In their first report they say :— In the medico-legal facts submitted to our notice, we have found no indication of the poisonous action of chloro- form, and consequently we reply that the patient did not die from the effect of inhalation of that agent. We agree with this conclusion ; for the patient showed no signs of the narcotic influence of the chloroform,—the symptoms were those of asphyxia, occurring at the com- mencement of the attempted inhalation : we say attempted, for any real inhalation was rendered impossible by the suspended respiration. The same Commission, in a second report, arrived at these two most important conclusions :— 1st. Chloroform is hable to irritate by its odour and contact the aii'-passages, and 2nd]y. Certain modes of administration increase the danger : thus, there is risk of asphyxia when the vapour is not sufficiently mixed with air, or when respiration is not free.'* On which they fomided the caution, to take care that the respiration be entirely free. Now, Dr. Snow controverts these conclusions of the French Commission. He cannot agree, he says, with the * London Journ. of Med. p. 307.