CHLOROFORM IN USE 559 



ment of accurately graduated apparatus. The following paper 

 records the application of the methods first used on animals 

 to the human subject ; and it will be seen how closely, in spite 

 of the difference in species, man approximated to the other 

 mammalia, and how the canons of correct administration as 

 determined on the latter apply to the human subject. 



The limits, however, of the inquiry are very narrow. Anaes- 

 thesia with chloroform is only practised in man when an 

 operation of some duration, and usually of some severity, is 

 required, and the mere fact of an operation introduces new 

 conditions which complicate the observations. The state of the 

 patient must ever be borne in mind, and it is usually unadvisable 

 for many reasons to keep the patient under as deeply as is 

 the custom in the lower animals, so that here again the com- 

 parison is not easy. Further, the aim of the anaesthetist is, with 

 human patients, to use as little chloroform as will suffice for the 

 end in view, and this varies with every operation, some cases 

 requiring the greatest relaxation obtainable with deep anaes- 

 thesia ; others, requiring merely the abolition of pain, are given 

 the smallest amount of the drug that is necessary for the 

 purpose, as is well seen in Sir Victor Horsley's curve of his 

 operations on the central nervous system. Such conditions are 

 fixed by the necessities of each case, and all that can be done, 

 when it is desired to study any given phenomenon, is to multiply 

 the observations till a sufficient number of illustrative cases are 

 encountered. In a word, it is necessary to substitute observation 

 for experiment. 



Apparatus 



The first point on which attention must be fixed is the 

 apparatus which is to be used. It is not necessary to go into 

 the merits and demerits of all the various forms of apparatus that 

 have been mentioned ; ] but a few remarks on the " open " method 

 ©f administering chloroform may not be out of place, as this, 

 in spite of its drawbacks, must be taken as the standard of 

 comparison with all the newer methods, on account of the large 

 number of cases that are still anaesthetised by its use. 



By the open method chloroform is dropped on a piece of lint 

 or similar substance, and the evaporation from this gives a 



1 For an examination of the Harcourt, Brodie, Dubois, and Junker apparatus 

 see Waller and Wells (6 d). On the Junker apparatus see Chapman (14). 



