Remarks on the comparative value of the different anaesthetic agents / by George Hayward.

  • George Hayward
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the comparative value of the different anaesthetic agents / by George Hayward. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    necessary, Tor there is a stronger ground on which we can rest our oppo- sition to the use of chloroform, that is, its danger to life. This, it is well known, has already been in several instances destroyed by it. If it can be shown that it has caused the death of a single individual, when properly administered, we cannot fail to have our misgivings of the safety of its exhibition, though it may have been inhaled in almost num- berless cases without any ill effect. I am satisfied that there are already on record at least twenty well- authenticated cases of death from the inhalation of chloroform ; and I know not how a conscientious man, knowing this fact, can willingly take the responsibility and expose his patient to this fearful result. One of the conclusions to which M. Malgaigne arrives, in his report on chloro- form, to the Academy of Medicine of Paris, cannot be too strongly im- pressed on the minds of those who feel inclined to use it. Chloro- form possesses a toxic action peculiar to itself, which has been taken advantage of in medicine by arresting it at the period of insensibility, which action, however, may, by being too much prolonged, cause im- mediate death. The danger is that we cannot always know the pre- cise time to arrest it, and that the fatal blow may be struck before we make the attempt. ]n other words, chloroform is a poison, and the insensibility which it produces is only the first stage of its poisonous action. 3d. Of Chloric Ether. There are two kinds of chloric ether. The one, the strong or con- centrated ; and the other, the chloric ether of commerce. They are both tinctures of chloroform, differing from each other only in the rela- tive proportions of the alcohol and chloroform of which they are com- posed. The concentrated consists of one part of chloroform to nine parts of alcohol ; and in the chloric ether of commerce, there is one part of chloroform to fifteen of alcohol. The former is the one that is sometimes used for inhalation. It is said to have been first recommended for this purpose by one of the most eminent surgeons of Great Britain, William Lawrence, Esq., of London ; but I cannot learn that it is now employed in Europe to any extent in this way. It fact, it is hardly spoken of at all in the foreign medical journals that I have seen, and I have examined a laro-e number with this view. It has been tried, however, pretty extensively by Dr. J. C. Warren and Dr. J, Mason W'arren, both at the
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