212 



Both, in small quantities, produce exhilaration. Both, in a large 

 dose, produce the phenomena of dead drunkenness, and both, insen- 

 sibility to pain. With alcohol, the state persists, while the fluid 

 remains in the stomach; and patients have been at once aroused by 

 the use of the stomach pump. In like manner anaesthesia con- 

 tinues, while ether vapour fills the lungs; respiration pumps the 

 ether vapour from that receptacle, and gradually aerating the blood, 

 terminates the anaesthetic state. Alcohol is found in the blood by 

 chemical analysis; ether is equally detected in it by its peculiar 

 odour. 



Convulsions have been noticed in rare connection, both with ether 

 and with alcohol. Finally, there is in ordinary cases, no great 

 solicitude for the safety of a patient who is dead drunk, and expe- 

 rience has shown that ether narcotism is very rarely accompanied 

 with danger. 



Time does not serve for an analysis of the evidence relating to 

 the effect of ether upon the different portions of the nervous system ; 

 nor is this evidence of a conclusive character. There may be some 

 connection between the spasm, occasionally produced by alcohol 

 and ether, and that induced by opium, alluded to by Todd and Bow- 

 man, resulting from polarity of the spinal cord, in cold-blooded, and 

 even in Avarm-blooded animals. 



Upon the same authority spasm of the glottis is among the results 

 of irritation of the medulla oblongata. On the other hand, the me- 

 dulla oblongata has been considered by Flourens, who claims this 

 point as his discovery, to be the last stronghold from which life is 

 driven by the anaesthetic agent. The animal then dies. Yet spasm 

 of the glottis is not a formidable symptom. 



The details of experiments in this obscure branch of physiology 

 may be found in the papers of Flourens and of Longet, and may 

 be compared with the intellectual phenomena elsewhere alluded to 

 in this paper. 



Dangers. — It remains only to speak of the dangers of the anae- 

 sthetic state. From this category, the symptom of asphyxia may 

 be rejected; this being an evil easily anticipated, when due to an 

 imperfection in the process ; to the non-admission to the lungs of 

 oxygen. Gradual and overwhelming narcotism may also be antici- 

 pated and arrested. The danger arising from the specific effects of 

 an inebriating vapour in the pulmonary tubes may be considered, 1, 

 as a question of experience and fact; and 2, of analogy and pro- 

 bability. As to the fact, I have been unable to find any fatal case 



