CHLOROFORM IN USE 



57i 



anaesthetic, and chloroform is certainly not a heart tonic, 

 whatever other properties it may possess. Advantage was, 

 therefore, taken of the stimulating action of oxygen, which 

 Leonard Hill has shown to have so marked an effect when 

 the heart is subjected to an unusual strain. Oxygen was 

 blown through the apparatus instead of air at the beginning 

 of anaesthesia, and again towards the end of the operation, 

 and the patient left the operating-table in a better state as 

 regards her heart than when the operation began, and re- 

 covered without a bad symptom. This is in full accord with 

 the observations of W. Hagen (13), who has published records 

 (made during the use of the Roth-Drager apparatus) of the 

 blood-pressure and respiration under oxygen and chloroform. 

 One case was exceptional from a different reason to the 

 others. The anaesthetist was using the apparatus for the first 

 time, and found some difficulty in translating his knowledge 

 (admittedly great) of the open method into the percentages 

 given by the machine. So that the known percentages in this 

 case were not the correct ones, and, after various unexpected 

 incidents had occurred (fortunately none of them of a serious 

 character), the anaesthetist finished the case with the open 



2 



6 8 10 12 14 16 IS 20 22 24 26 28 30 



Fig. 8. — Known percentages that were incorrect. 



method (fig. 8). But it is only fair to say that on all the subse- 

 quent occasions the results were all that could be desired. 



Conclusions 



It is a little misleading to write of the conclusions to be 

 derived from observations like the present, which are in reality 

 but the commencement of further researches of which the end 

 is still far off. But it is sometimes useful to look back, even if 



