Movements of the Heart of the Copper-head Snake. 35 



The now celebrated Hyderabad Cliloroform Commission 

 proved conclusively that, under chloroform, i-espiration ceased 

 before the heart ; for in the entire 571 animals experimented 

 on, including dogs and m()nke3's particularly, and a few 

 horses, goats, cats, and rabbits, this was invariably the case. 

 Chloroform was, as a rule, administered very freely, and 

 the maximum time the heart continued to beat after respinv 

 tion ceased was 11 minutes in the dog, and 1 2 in the monkey. 

 No doubt in the human subject, chloroform is not adminis- 

 tered to the healthy, and the highly sensitive heai't cannot 

 long survive the death of the body ; but making due 

 allowances, the comparative study of excised hearts, justify 

 and support the conclusions of that Committee, that death 

 is not due to failure of the heart's action. And the record 

 of cases of resuscitation, when surgeons have pronounced 

 the patient dead, such as the one mentioned by a Surgeon- 

 major of the Bengal Medical Service in the Lancet where 

 he says, ''I succeeded after about twenty minutes of the 

 hardest work I ever had," enable us to indulge the hopci 

 that deaths from chloroform administered for medical 

 purposes, will become rarer and rarer, especially with the 

 young. The practical conclusion of the whole matter is, 

 that while there is pulsation ol the heart, there is hope. 



