CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 259 



Ether excites, especially women, in a manner which forbids it being ad- 

 ministered publicly while chloroform makes all persons gay, a gaiety 

 which may be indulged in before witnesses of both sexes. The se- 

 quent accidents produced by ether are phenomena of inflammation; 

 those following chloroforming are symptoms of feebleness and of 

 organic weakness. Ether produces death, during the experiment, 

 very rarely, and with great difficulty, while chloroform may deter- 

 mine life instantly, when the patient is not watched, or the chloroform 

 awkwardly administered, or when the bronchia have a large commu- 

 nication with the sanguineous pulmonary organs, and when the chlo- 

 roform is absorbed in the form of abundant vapors. In no case should 

 chloroform be resorted to, when a grave disturbance of the functions 

 exists, dependent upon a profound lesion of the central organs of cir- 

 culation or nervous swellings. It may easily be understood that a new 

 disturbance of the functions being added to that existing, should pro- 

 duce a rapid, and so to say, instantaneous death. Chloroform conse- 

 quently should never be used when the nervous system has been en- 

 feebled by a violent shock --a gun-shot wound, or when the patient 

 is exhausted by a long and abundant suppuration, by losses of blood, 

 or a chlorotic state carried to an advanced degree. When chloroform 

 has suspended the vital forces and death is apparent, the surgeon must 

 not abandon the patient until he has endeavored for a long time to re- 

 call him to life. The skin should be partially excited by cold water, 

 frictions with alcoalats, alkali, etc., etc., the organs should be reanima- 

 ted by currents of air directed upon the face and the limbs, while the 

 breast is agitated by slight communicated motions ; care must be taken 

 to place the patient in the position most favorable to the re-establish- 

 ment of the circulation, by putting him horizontally upon his back, or 

 obliquely upon his side. Excitants introduced in his mouth ; mint 

 water ; antispasmodics placed upon the rectal surface, favor the resus- 

 citation of the motions of the heart, reduced to oscillation or complete 

 resolution; cauterizations in the mouth or in the pharynx with ammo- 

 nia, may contribute to restore the dying man ; there are also exam- 

 ples of electricity being successfully applied to vivify an organization 

 about stagnating forever. 



In studying the effects of ether and chloroform, M. Lamballe has 

 made a long and varied series of experiments on dogs, cats and rabbits, 

 He would plunge the animal's head into a bladder containing only 

 chloroform vapors ; or into a bladder where the chloroform vapor was 

 mixed with a given quantity of atmospheric air ; or the chloroform was 

 administered by a concave sponge, which was gradually carried to the 

 animal's nose, and which was kept before the nostrils, so that a free 

 current of air and of chloroform were simultaneously introduced. In 

 the first case the action of the chloroform was instantaneous and/ou- 

 droyante ; the heart and the respiration were immediately arrested. 

 In the second case the same phenomena were observed, but not with 

 the same rapidity. In the third case the progress of the phenomena 

 was slow compared to the former. In the first series of experiments, 

 where the quantity of chloroform absorbed was considerable, all the 

 23* 



