1900- 



Observations on Blood Pressure. 215 



A Rigid Condition of the Body may occur while the animal is 

 deeply under chloroform and may disappear as he comes out. Tracing 

 31 is taken from a case of this kind. The animal was completely 

 anaesthetized and still taking chloroform at 6, but the jaws were rigidly 

 closed. At 7 he was still very rigid and the jaws could not be forced 

 apart. Chloroform was stopped at 8, and soon the spasm lessened and 

 the jaw\s relaxed, and without giving any more chloroform a stomach 



Tracing XXXI.- 1/4. — Animal completely under Chloroform. 7 Rigid condition of body. 8 

 Chloroform stopped and rigidity soon ceased. 



tube was passed with ease. I have seen this rigidity occur clinically 

 occasionally under ether to a marked degree, and to a less extent under 

 chloroform. G. O. C. Mackness^ mentions a case where " suddenly 

 clonic spasms of the face and limbs came on" under chloroform where 

 the patient recovered ; while E. W. Dickson'- gives an instance where 

 such ended fatally. Fourteen cases are mentioned by the Anjesthetic 

 Committee of the British Medical Association in which fits or epileptic 

 convulsions were noticed.''' 



Methods of Resuscitation in Chloroform Poisoning, 



Of all methods tried artificial respiration was found to be by far the 

 most certain method of restoring animals in which the respiration had 

 stopped as a result of chloroform poisoning. In the majority of cases it 

 was successful, though occasionally, even when started as soon as the 

 natural respiration had ceased, it failed to save life. In these latter 

 cases probably the heart and vaso-motor centre were paralyzed almost 

 synchronously with the respiration. The method followed was 

 rhythmical compression of the chest, and the effect on the blood pressure 

 consists in a rise during each expiration. In using the method the air 

 passages must be kept free by keeping the tongue firmly pulled out and 

 if necessary introducing the tip of the index finger into the rima 

 glottidis, by which means the vocal cords are kept apart. The Lancet 

 Clinical Report mentions a case " where mechanical stimulation of the 

 larynx by pressing the finger down to the rima glottidis was said to 



1 British Medical Journal, Dec. 7th, 1895. 



2 British Medical Journal, Oct. 19th, 1895. 



:^ Report of the Anaesthetic Committee, British Medical Journal, Feb. 23rd, 1891. 



