LECTURES, DELIVERED AT THE LOCK HOSPITAL, LONDON
Authors: H. Lee
Journal: BMJ (1854)

zu --c to onpelnknie a. is cs.Such n- stVAnce k1haveb recaorded by M and Oorviart; but do smptoms of the cas ae not described bythose authon.Howeve, in the DuMin Joesa for 1848, a similar cas is plied by Dr. Mayne, and all the particular are stated.he symptoms pDreented by the patient wre srctly p liar, and lasted for years.Taking them all in all, they e identical with those which we l feel during intese het of the weather, when the hot medium surrounding us will not carry off all the caloric which our bodies are pre- paed to radiate.The patient, says Dr. Mayne, had the aatest dislike to change her position.She 8sufered from ppna andpalpitation of the heart on taking exercise: and one remarkable symptom was contau weating, which, un- like that of hectic, was unceasing; so that her linen was at all times saturated with moisture.She had also but little desire for nourishment.The bowels were torpid, and she aeemed as incapable of mental as of bodily exertion.She died suddenly, after taking an unusual amount of exercise.As cases of cyanosis, where the blood passes from the wight to the left side of the heart without being properly arterialised, give evidence of deficient calorfication, and afford a negative proof that the amount of caloric gene- rated in the body is in proportion to the free union of blood and atmosphere, the peculiar case related by Dr. Mayne gives affirmative proof of the same fact.The arterial blood, passing twice through the lungs, and diffused through the venous as well as through the arterial system, could not but produce those effects in the system described by Dr. Mayne-effects which all happen when venous blood becomes arterial in character, as it is in the tropics, and even in the temperate zones, when the summer heat is very great.It is unfortunate that Dr. Mayne did not note the temperature of this woman's body; though I do not myself imagine that he would have found it much increased, be- cause the profuse elimination from the skin would equalise the animal temperature, as it does in cases where the body in exposed to extraordinary heat, as in the experiments of Blagen and Fordyce, and in operations attendant on the drying of cloth-prints in the heated chambers of printing establishments.The last on the list of arguments for the chemical theory of animal heat has reference to anssthesia.To enter fully into this argument, I should be obliged to go over the whole ground of debate, in relation to the rnodw operandi of narcotics in general; and should be forced to refer to Dr. Snow's theory of their modwa operandi, and to use it as the basis of mine.After so full and able a description of the theory as that which its originator has given at the last Physiological Meeting of the Medical Society, and in his published essays, I feel that but little is required of me.Tat all the agents which have the property of producimg anusthesia have the property also of stopping oxidation, and even of suspending ordinary combustion, must be ad- mitted by every experimentalist, and may be proven by any one who does not grudge the time and labour necessary for making a few simple experiments.It is curious, moreover, that those agents which posse the greatest power in sus- pending ordinary combustion, exert the quickest influence on the animal body in producing aniesthesia.If, then, these truths are taken, and are coupled with Dr. Snow's carefully proven facts, that, during anesthesia,