195
So far no anæsthetic has been discovered which can he favourably compared in any way
with chloroform administered on Syme's principles. Ether can be used only in certain
climates and under certain conditions. Nitrous oxide is said to induce epilepsy and insanity,
and none of the other so-called anæsthetics deserves any consideration at all. A further evil
result of the morbid and unfounded dread of chloroform fostered by the English and Scotch
Commissions has shown itself' in many of the large medical schools and hospitals in Great
Britain, where anæsthesia has been relegated to specialists, and students have ceased to enjoy
the advantages of practical teaching in anæsthetics, so that they now begin practice almost
ignorant of a subject in which they ought to have become experts before they left college.
Syme’s pupils, however, have not abandoned his precepts, and it is a notorious fact that they
have had the same success with chloroform as he had. For example, in both the hospitals
attached to the Hyderabad Medical School, chloroform is always given by students with
absolute safety, and with no precautions 'whatever against failure of the heart except attention
to the respiration. There can he no doubt that immunity from danger with chloroform in
Hyderabad is not due to any peculiarity of climate. oro f t h e p a t i e n t s , o r t o t h e q u a l i t y o f t h e
drug, but simply to the manner in which it i s a d mi n i s t e r e d .
In 1888 the Government of the Nizam of Hyderabad appointed a commission to enquire
into the alleged dangers of chloroform; and the report drawn up by this body, based on numer--
ous experiments, tended to provet h a t c h l o r o f o r m d o e s n o t a f f e c tt
h e h e a r t . T h e M i n i s t e r o f
Hyderabad, Sir Asman Jab, thereupon of fered the lancet £1,000 to send a representative to
India to repeat and extend the experiments Of the first Hyderabad commission. This offer was
accepted, and Dr. Lauder Brunton, F.R.S., has a r r i v e d
i n H y d e r a b a d , a n d w i t h s u r g e o n - M a j o r
Bomford, M.D., L o n d o n , o f t h e I n d i a n M e d i c a l S e r v i c e , h a s c o n s t i t u t e da
s e c o n d C o m m i s s i o n ,
which it is hoped will settle finally whether chloroform can be given so as to do good without
the risk of evil. Nothing. can show better the beneficent nature of the solid and friendly tie
which binds together the British and the Nizam’s Goverments than the re
m a r k b l e a n d c o s m o p o l i t a n i n t e r e s t w h i c h H .H
. t h e N i z a m a n d h i s o f f i c i a l s , o n e a n d a l l , h a v e t a k e n i n
bringing the question of the safety of chloroform to the proof. It redounds to the honour of
the Government of India, no less than to that of the administration of the Prime Minister,
Asman Jah, that the leading Indian State should take a principal share in the settlement of
a question which concerns the welfare and the happiness of the whole mankind.
LEADING ARTICLE.
" The Lancet," January 18th, 1890.
THE second Hyderabad Chloroform Commission, whose report appears on another page
of “The Lancet " of to-day's issue, has excited a great deal of interest, - both on account of the
importance of the subject of investigation and the circumstances under which the work has
been undertaken. The Commission owed its existence to Surgeon-Major Lawrie's veneration
for his late teacher, Professor Syme, and his desire to prove the correctness of Syme’s teaching