Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-08-17
ANESrRErIC AGENTS.

Few topics discussed in medical circles
Oh late have attracted the popular atten-
ton that has been given to the papers of
Df. Sims and DIR. johnson on the use of
anesthetic agents the former recounting
before the New York Academy of Medi.
cine some cases exemplifying the danger of
employing new compounds in this cspso-
ity F; and the latter, before the Medico.
Legal Society, raising the question of When,
and under what circumstances, the prac.
titioner Is justified in Using chIoroform,
ether, amyiene, bromide OF ethyl, etc., to
snodue pain. In both papers the statistics
OF mortality from the use of the drugs set
vividly before the minds Of the audiences
assembled the fact that certain risk of
iatal accident always accompanies the use
ot ,anesthetlc agents of all descriptions.
chioroform being the most perilous Of ali
IN the proportion OF ten to one. 1t has
been shown by evidence that the risk is
not always contingent upon the presence of
disease OF the heart or of pulmonary
trouble but that chloroform, under tho
ordinary modes Of administration, NAV
produce sudden death without the
cooperation of either of these causes.
Taxing the latter as the typical anesthetio,
as IL undoubtedly has proved itself the
most efficient, the clestion raised bv DR..
johnson as to when medical mar "a i,pti.
he'd IN using it is one of the erayest i'm.
portance, particularly when il is considered
that only few years ago many physicians
were IN the habit of allowing patients of
average intelligence to apply it in attacks
OF neuralgia, when they were not present TO
superintend the administration. A few
sudden deaths led to the exercise of more
caution, but did not result in any expert.
ments calculated to determine whether
there Is any mode of administering the al.
leviative, by means of which release from
PAIN may be secured, while the peril to life
Is obylated. Paul Bert, recently Minister
OF Public instruction and member of the
Institute OF France, whose remarkable ex.
perlments IN destroying the bacteria Of
anthrax by aerostatic pressure attracted
general attention several years ago, sp-
pears to have taken up the problem left
unsolved by medical practitioners and
to have furnished facts that may lead
to Its solution. His experiments wera
conducted with dogs, sparrows, and
mice confined in air.tight eompart-
ments, containing In mixture with pure
air given percentages OF chloroform,
ether, amylene, bromide of ethyl,
etc, with view to determine what
proportion of the anesthetic was neces.
sary to produce unconsciousness with.
out death, in the first instance,
and in the second, what proportion
proved most rapidly fatal. His researches
developed this curious fact-that, in all
cases except protoxlde of nitrogen, the
fatal dose Is exactly double the dose he.
CURED to produce insensibility. When he
confined mice in vapor composed of ak
grams OF chlcroform to lG0 liters OF air, for
example, he found that inBensibility ensusd
with normal rapidity, but there was no
danger OF death from protraction of the
experiment; but when the proportion Of
chioroterm was raised to twelve grsmmes
per 100 llters, death ensued very soon after
Inconsistencies superyened. This rule ne
found to hold good throughout the series:
and he thus established what he proposes
to call the working zone of anesthesia. In
practice he found that compound of nine
grams Of ehloroform to 100 liters of air was
extremely efficient in producing inseusibiI-
ity, the animal remaining perfectly uueon-
scious Tor two hours under the scalpel OF
the experimentalist without any attention
being required. The working zone in
anesthesis, Is, az thus demonstrated, very
narrow and, as an anesthetic acts net ac-
cording to the actual quantity inhaled, but
according to its proportion to the volume
OF air mixed with IT, very small quantity
may prove fatal when air is excluded,
while very large quantity may fail when
air is freely admitted. Hence the deaths
so often recorded by surgeons from ex.
tremely small Observation-Disclosures Tele.
graph.