270 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



ANAESTHETICS. 



A paper was contributed by Dr. B. W. Richardson, at the meet- 

 ing of the British Association, on methyl compounds. He said, 

 among other things that had been discovered by the experiments 

 made during the past year with ansesthetical bodies was, that it 

 was possible to remove pain without removing consciousness, 

 although any act performed by the patient was afterwards for- 

 gotten ; the nervous centre which produced sensibility was affected 

 and paralyzed before those 'centres which were devoted to con- 

 sciousness. He thought it very possible they would be able to 

 produce an agency which would produce paralysis of sensation 

 through the body without destroying consciousness at all. In 

 the course of the brief discussion which followed the reading of 

 the paper, Dr. Turnbull said the subject treated by Dr. Richard- 

 son was a most important one, and he believed that gentleman's 

 researches would lead to useful practical results in the prep- 

 aration of remedies. Professor Humphrey, of Cambridge, looked 

 forward to nitrate of amyle becoming a cure for those horrible 

 afflictions, lock-jaw and hydrophobia. With reference to the 

 distinction between the locality of consciousness and the locality 

 of sensation, the professor said he knew an instance in which a 

 lady, under the influence of ether, was aware that she was 

 having the wrong tooth drawn, although she was unable to give 

 utterance to the fact. 



THE BRAIN. 



Dr. Brown-Sequard, at the meeting of the British Association, 

 in the course of his remarks, said that the series of experiments 

 he had made upon different animals led him to the belief that 

 the right side of the brain was more important for 'organic Hfo 

 than the left side was. Although the two sides of the brain 

 were precisely alike when the animals were born, by greater 

 development of the activities of one side it came to be quite 

 different from the other. 



USE OF ELECTRICITY IN CAUTERIZATION. 



The old method of cauterization by fire is to be replaced by 

 the electro-thermic or galvano-caustic apparatus. The latter 

 process is safer and more certain in its operation. It is pos- 

 sible at will to vary the degree of heat, to raise it instantly to 

 the highest intensity, to diminish or suppress it, to render it 

 intermittent or continued, to direct it into deep cavities, and to 

 destroy all the tissues by contact. It is said that the wounds 

 produced by electricity are less liable to contagion and miasmatic 

 infections than those caused by sharp instruments. 



The apparatus can be made of any desired shape so as to be 

 applicable to all parts of the body, and it is known that impor- 

 tant cures have been effected by the introduction of platinum 

 wires and the cauterization by the battery of parts of the body 

 inaccessible in any other way. Electricity has already been 



