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of respiration." The outcry, foolish though it may have been, against the experiments just
mentioned may not be altogether without its use if it leads to a general recognition of the
dangers of tight-lacing or tight clothing generally in anyone who is about to take an
anæsthetic.
LEADING ARTICLE.
" The Lancet," 29th March 1890.
Professor H. C. Wood, conjointly with Dr. Hare, has communicated a paper upon
the physiological action of chloroform to the American Medical News of Feb. 22nd. The
authors criticise the work of the Hyderabad Commission, and are led to adopt very different
views concerning the action exerted by chloroform upon the heart. Moreover, they take
exception to an observation made by us in The Lancet of Jan. 18th, p. 139. We said, in
speaking of the Hyderabad Commission: "The practical outcome of the research would
appear to be that deaths are not inevitable. They are therefore preventable, and by due care
in its administration they may be with certainty avoided." Professor Wood and his colla
-
borator do not appear to recognise that in using the above words we were expressing the
conclusions of the Commission rather than our own. We were careful to add: "The conclu
-
sions of the Commission are sweeping, and without abundant evidence cannot be accepted."
We have spoken with no uncertain sound from time to time concerning the dangers attendi
n g
the use of chloroform—dangers which unquestionably, in temperate climes, manifest themselves
through the heart. A careful perusal of the report of the Commission will, we think, amply
justify us when we assert the outcome of its teaching is that heart failure does not occur, and
deaths are, if ordinary precautions are adopted, quite preventable. We may, however, quote
the final words of the Commission in confirmation of this. It says ( The Lancet, Jan, 18th,
p . 159): "The Commission has no doubt whatever that if the above rules be followed, chloro
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form may be given in any case requiring an operation with perfect ease and absolute safety,
so as to do good without the risk of evil." The rules, we may remark, are simply those which
every competent chloroformist has, since the days of the English Chloroform Committee,
known and practised. But the really important part of Professor Wood's paper is that in
which he narrates his own experiments. The work of Professor Wood, as that of a tried and
skilled experimenter, and one who has investigated the action of chloroform upon the heart
more than once, must command the utmost attention. In reviewing modern physiological
research on this subject, he justly says it is unanimous in averring that chloroform given
diluted to the lower animals kills qu a the respiration,i . e . ,
a s S n o w h a s w e l l e x p l a i n e d , b
y
cumulation; given in concentrated vapour, it kills by provoking paralytic arrest of the heart.
This result also obtains when chloroform is injected into the veins. The heart further after
this arrest is found relaxed and incapable of responding to stimulation. Professor Wood states
this result is so constant that he has repeatedly demonstrated it before his class. It has been
the custom to destroy dogs in the laboratory by chloroform, and Professor Wood has "often