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right to ask that the Nizam and his Minister, Sir Asman Jah, together with the Minister's
responsible adviser, the Nawab Mushtak Hussain, should receive public recognition as
benefactors not only of the human race, but also of the animal kingdom, which, no less than
mankind will derive benefit from the advantages chloroform confers in the abolition of pain
and in the relief of suffering.
In considering the work of the Second Hyderabad Chloroform Commission, a very
brief recapitulation is necessary. Four hundred and thirty animals were killed with chloro-
form by the Commission's Sub-Committee, or were subjected to experiments as to the effects of
artificial respiration, with the object of confirming, elaborating, or disproving the work of the
First Commission. In addition to this, 168 animals were killed by the Commission with
chloroform and ether, and the effects were recorded by Drs. Lauder Brunton and Bombard
with Ludwig's and Fick's manometers. The Sub-Committee's experiments confirmed the results
obtained by the First Commission presided over by Dr. Hehir; and in their turn the results
of the Sub-Committee were confirmed by the experiments undertaken with the self-recording
apparatus. In every case of death from chloroform the respiration stopped before the heart.
The three series of experiments showed that simple chloroform poisoning causes paralysis of
the respiratory centre and then gradual death, the heart being the last organ in the body to
die. The exceptions to the rule that the heart retains its vitality longer than any other part
of the body were found in four cases, in which more or less energetic contractions of the
diaphragm occurred after the cessation of the heart's action. In one case the contractions
took place after the thorax had been laid open, and when the lungs were collapsed. The
Commission called these movements gasps, but solely for convenience and the want of a better
term. They were no more respiratory movements than the wagging of the tail and the snap-
ping of the jaws, which went on for ten minutes after death in two other cases, were move-
ments of joy or of mastication. The respiratory is a coördinating centre, but there is no
reason why any of the muscles should not contract spasmodically from stimuli applied to their
own
proper centres after the respiratory centre is paralysed. The diaphragmatic contractions
in vomiting and hiccough are not generally considered respiratory movements.
With reference to the manometer experiments of the Commission, it must be borne in
mind that the inhalation of chloroform necessarily causes a fall of the blood-pressure. When
this was first imperfectly demonstrated by the English Commission in 1864 it was erroneously
thought to be a source of danger; and the idea was confirmed by the Glasgow Committee in
1879, which went further and attempted to prove, by means of more accurate apparatus, that
not only does chloroform cause a fall of the blood-pressure, but that the fall is sometimes
capricious, and that this constitutes the grave danger in chloroform administration. The
Commission have shown that the capricious effects which the Glasgow Committee attributed to
chloroform were produced by accidental asphyxia; and the fact that the fall of the blood-
pressure, as indicated in the Glasgow Committee ' s tracings, was irregular is now known to
prove that there must have been irregularity of, or interference with, the respiration, in their
experiments. How the fall of the blood-pressure is produced by chloroform may be left for
physiologists to determine, but it must be clearly understood that it is in no sense a danger, in