258 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



fluence. The general rule may be thus stated : the anesthesetics must 

 be suspended when the pulse has fallen so low as 55 or 56 per minute, 

 unless the operator would see the patient suddenly sink, and succumb 

 by paralysis of the heart. Persons whose heart habitually beats 

 slowly must be still more carefully observed during the chloroforming, 

 for the pulsations of the pulse tend to cease instantly with some per- 

 sons and place their life in imminent danger. 



Although chloroform has definitively obtained the preference over 

 ether, the parallel traced by M. Jobert de Lamballe between these two 

 agents is interesting and may be profitable. Ether has a strong, pen- 

 etrating odor, which renders it repugnant to some persons ; it always 

 commences by irritating the respiratory organs ; it frequently provokes 

 coughing, and sometimes suflfocation. Chloroform does not disturb 

 nor irritate the organs it passes through ; on the contrary, patients 

 take pleasure in inhaling it. Chloroform produces only a feeble or- 

 ganic excitement ; ether would seem to cause a violent one, as the 

 inspirations of the latter give rise to a good deal of agitation in 

 the heart and in the other muscles. Ether develops its anesthesetic 

 effects slowly, and they remain for some time after the experiment or 

 the operation is ended, in the form of intoxication, headache, feeble 

 pulse, and cold limbs. Chloroform, on the contrary, ceases, in gene- 

 ral, its action, when the patient stops inhaling it, and it is only in 

 especial cases it is seen to prolong its effects for some time after the 

 patient ceases to inhale it, cases which never occur except where the 

 operator has pushed the saturation of the system to an extreme de- 

 gree. Ether alters the color and the consistency of the blood, while 

 chloroform does not change either its nature or its color. Chloroform 

 never retards the healing of wounds, ether frequently militates against 

 their healing. M. Jobert de Lamballe has never observed chloroform, 

 diminish in any way the productions engendered by, and necessary 

 to, the healing process, or alter their consistency ; ether, on the con- 

 trary, seems to produce marked effects, making the plastic lymph less 

 consistent and less vital. Both chloroform and ether excite at first the 

 vascular apparatus, precipitating the motions of the heart, as if the 

 latter was disturbed by the introduction of some foreign body. Ether 

 produces these effects in a much greater degree than chloroform, and 

 continues them almost indefinitely, i. e., during nearly the whole time 

 of the experiment, or the operation. Ether acting upon the organs it 

 touches, under the form of vapor, has a tendency to inflame them 

 chloroform produces nothing of the sort. Chloroform and ether, in 

 their second action, stupefy the nervous system, and consequently sus- 

 pend the functions of the muscles of locomotion and of organic life. 

 Chloroform paralyses them hopelessly, as in a second the heart may 

 cease to beat. Chloroform produces its effects instantly : in thirty 

 seconds, in a minute and a half, in two, three, or four minutes, at 

 most. Ether, on the contrary, determines insensibility only in 13, 15, 

 18 or 20 minutes, and sometimes requires even more time. Chloro- 

 form calms the organs ether troubles them in a violent manner, even 

 during sleep, which is accompanied with agreeable or painful dreams. 



