Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-08-13
ANESTHETIC AGENTS,
The Results OF Recent Experiments
Paui Bert's Investigations.
PHILADELPHIA Telegraph.

Philadelphia Telegraph.
Few topics discussed in medical circles of
late have attracted the popular attention tina
has been given 10 the papers of DIR. Sims and
DIR. johnson on the use of anesthetic agents;
the former recounting before the New York
Academy of Medicine some cases exemplify
ing the danger of employing new compounds
in this capacity; and the latter, before the
Medico-Legal Society, raising the question
of when, and under what circumstances, the
practitioner is justified in using chloroform,
ether, amylens, bromide of ethyl, ETC., to sub
due pain. In both papers the statistics of NOR
tally from the use of the drugs set wildly be-
fore the minds OF the audiences assembled the
fact that a certain risk of fatal accident al
wavs accompanies the use of anesthetic
agents of all descriptions, chlofoform being
the most perilous of all 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
uuder the ordinary modes OF administration
may produce sudden death without the CO.
operation of either of these causes.
Taking the latter as the typical anesthetic,
as it undoubtedly has proved itself the most
efficient, the question raised by DR.. johnson,
as 10 when a medical man is justified iD using
it, is one of the gravest Importance, particu-
larry when it is considered that only few
years ago many physicians were IN the habit
OF allowing patients of average intelligence
to employ it in attacks of neuralgia, when
they were not present to superintend the ad
ministratiop. A few sudden deaths led to
the exercise of more caution, but did not re-
suit in any experiments calculated to deter
mine whether there is any mode of admins
tering the alternative by means OF which re-
lease from pain may be secured, while the
peril to life is obviateI.
II B
instruction and a member Of the Institute OF
France, whose remarkable experiments in
destroying the bacteria of anthrax by eero-
static pressure, attracted general attention
several years ago, appears TO have taken up
the problem left unsolved by medical prsc-
titioners and TO have furnished facts that
may lead to its solution. His experiments
were conducted with dogs, sparrows and
mice confined in alright compartments,
containing in mixture with pure and given
percentages of chloroform, ether, amylene,
mine what proportion of the snesthetic was
necessary to produce inconsistencies 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 protoxide of
nitrogen, the fatal dose is exactly double the
dose required to produce insensibility.
w men ne cOnuneO mice IN VapOT COupOetu
of six grammes of chloroform to 100 liters
of air. for example, he found that in
sensibility ensued with normal rspidity, but
there was no danger of death from protrac-
ton Of the experiment; but when the pro-
portion of chloroform was raised to twelve
grammes per 100 liters, death ensued very
soon after INCONSISTENCIES supervened. This
rule he found to hold good throughout the
series; and he thus established what he pro-
poses 10 call the working zone of anes-
thesia. In practice he found that COM
pound of nine grammes of chloroform to 100
liters of air was extremely efficient in pro
ducing inseusibility, the animal remaining
perfectly unconscious for two hours under
the scslpel of the experimental without any
attention being required. The working zone
in anesthesia, is, as thus demonstrated, very
narrow and as an anesthetic acts not accord
ing to the actual quantity inhaled, but &C.
cording to its proportion to the volume OF
air mixed whit, very small quantity may
prove fatal when air is excluded, while a
very large quantity may fail when air is
freely admitted. Hence, the deaths co often
recorded by surgeons from extremely small