On aether and chloroform as anæsthetics : being the results of about 11,000 administrations of those agents personally studied in the hospitals of London, Paris, etc., during the last ten years / by Charles Kidd.
- Kidd, Charles.
- Date:
- 1858
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On aether and chloroform as anæsthetics : being the results of about 11,000 administrations of those agents personally studied in the hospitals of London, Paris, etc., during the last ten years / by Charles Kidd. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
90/140 (page 74)
![fact that chloroform acts on the system in a progres- sive manner, as if it were absorbed into the blood, and that the surgeon who applies chloroform must be prepared for, at least, four stages of chloroformisation as marked out by nature. [M. Jobert says three stages : one of excitement or exaltation of sensibility; a second of ansesthesia ; and a third of complete prostration.] It seems to me more practical or consistent with actual facts in the hospital theatre to give two stages of excitement, probably cerebral and spinal, and two stages of depression or anses- thesia, cerebro-spinal and ganglionic. It may be said, that a dentist's assistant will apply chloroform and profess to know nothing of these fine-drawn distinctions ; still it is well to know them, as they undoubtedly exist. It seems to me a good distinction also, easily kept in mind by the educated Surgeon, that chloroform acts first on the symmetrical organs; next on the reflex, or as we might call it, the partially symme- tric, and lastly on the unsymmetrical or ganglionic system. This is a set of distinctions very necessary to observe in ordinary surgical operations: these stages are every day observable, even in the same class of patients, such as cases of midwifery, &c. In the latter, for instance, it is very seldom neces- sary to annul the ordinary consciousness of the patient; it would seem as if the patient can be kept for no inconsiderable period in a condition favour- able to the expulsive act of the uternsj-and yet to be very well under chloroform. My firiend Dr Vernon has analysed the peculiar nervous arrangement of reflex and gaglionic nerves engaged in this action with great skill; it appears, in a word, very much](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21061841_0090.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
