200 Transactions of the Canadian Institute. [Vol. VII. 



should think in ordinary chloroform administration such a simultaneous 

 paralysis can never occur.^ Lieut.-Col. Lawrie stated in Appendix 

 No. 3, of the Report of the Hyderabad Commission'- that chloroform 

 has no direct action upon the heart, and this is quoted again in 

 a letter upon the Report of the Anaesthetic Commission in the 

 British Medical Journal of January 19th, 1901. I have no doubt, 

 however, but that chloroform does poison the heart muscle in the 

 same way as it must more or less poison every organ in the 

 body. As stated, in all of my fifty-two experiments in this 

 regard the respiration stopped before the heart. If the amount of 

 chloroform given be very great, however, artificial respiration, even if 

 immediately commenced, will not save the animal — showing that the 

 heart as well as the respiration is poisoned. Dr. H. C. Wood in an 

 address delivered before the International Medical Congress in Berlin in 

 1890,^ says, " We definitely proved that in the dog chloroform has a 

 distinct direct paralysing influence on both respiration and circulation ; 

 that the respiration may cease before the heart, or the two functions 

 may be simultaneously abolished ; but that in some cases the heart is 

 arrested before the respiration. We have several times seen the respira- 

 tion continue as long as one or even two minutes after the blood 

 pressure had fallen to zero, and the blood had completely disappeared 

 from the carotid artery." This might well be and yet the heart might 

 have been found to be still beating if auscultation had been practised. 

 In trying to explain the results of the Hyderabad Commission he says 

 further on, " It may be that the heat or other climatic conditions sur- 

 rounding the pariah dog make his heart less sensitive to the action of 

 chloroform than the hearts of dogs in northern climates." J. Harris* in 

 testing an apparatus for producing painless death of lower animals by 

 chloroform, which had been taken out from England to India, found 

 that it would not work, the reason being that the high temperature pre- 

 vented the concentration of the chloroform vapour. By placing ice in 

 the chambers animals were readily killed. I can quite understand this, 

 and have frequently noticed during the Indian hot weather that it was 

 more difficult than usual to get patients " under," especially if a punkah 

 were swinging near by. On the other hand it is hard to explain the 

 following statement, " It is stated that iced chloroform has been used in 

 14,000 cases in Wurzburg, Bavaria, without any ill results. Rapidity of 

 administration, comparative freedom from danger and absence of nausea 



1 Lancet, March 14th, 1891. 



2 Lancet, January, 1893. 



3 British Medical Journal, August i6th, 1890. 



4 Indian Medical Record, May 19th, 189s. 



