74 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the insensibility is total, just as in the last stage of chloroform. Thus 

 intoxication by chloroform and intoxication by alcohol proceed along 

 parallel lines, and we can distinguish a first period of intoxication, 

 properly so called, and a second period of sleep or coma. 



When a person takes chloroform, the first few inhalations make 

 him dizzy ; he is seized with a sort of vertigo and dimness of vision. 

 This vertigo goes on increasing, and, as the patient continues to respire 

 the toxic agent, his ideas become more and more exalted. He hears 

 what is said to him and makes replies, but he does so after the man- 

 ner of a drunken man, at first exaggerating his impressions and re- 

 gardless of proportion. His judgment has already disappeared, and 

 he utters the most insignificant replies with a theatrical accent, the 

 effect being often grotesque. Next, his ideas grow more and more 

 mixed: will and judgment being gone, ideation is disordered and de- 

 lirious ; in short, we have a state of sleep accompanied with dreaming, 

 closely resembling ordinary sleep. 



When the chloroform absorbed by the mucous membrane of the 

 lungs has passed into the blood, active memory, which presupposes 

 attention and will, has disappeared; still, the intelligence is not yet 

 dead. Ideas are still conceived, old recollections persist, and some- 

 times even the memory of past events is strangely quickened. The 

 patient will speak in a language he thought he had forgotten, and 

 recall old stories that seemed to have passed into oblivion. This 

 superexcitation of memory is all the more interesting because in sun- 

 dry forms of mental alienation it occurs with the same characters 

 these, too, being accompanied by entire loss of active memory. 



Though insensibility supervenes very soon after the administration 

 of chloroform, commonly it occurs only after the loss of memory, and 

 this circumstance leads to very singular results. Thus, if the surgeon 

 begins the operation before perfect insensibility has been fu*oduced, 

 the patient will cry out, and beg to have it delayed till the drug has 

 had full influence. One might suppose, from his cries of pain and 

 his contortions, that the chloroform had produced no effect, and yet 

 on awaking he has no recollection of what has taken place. 



Is that real pain which leaves in the mind no trace ? The answer 

 to this question is not so easy as one might imagine. Suppose an 

 acute, penetrating pain, continuing only for about one minute. Un- 

 doubtedly the patient suffers real pain during that minute ; but, if all 

 memory of it disappeared at once, then the patient would deny that 

 he had suffered at all, and would not hesitate to undergo the operation 

 again. In short, he would have enjoyed the benefits of chloroformic 

 anaesthesia. 



In administering chloroform, we must take account of the patient's 

 temperament. If he is a resolute, courageous person, all will go on 

 well, and the insensibility will readily disappear ; if, on the contrary, 

 he has an unconquerable dread of the operation, great watchfulness 



