98 



" The same remarks will apply equally to those who have 

 been rendered insensible by the inhalation of ether or chloro- 

 form. It happens by no means unfrecpiently that those who 

 have inhaled the vapour, writhe, and are very uneasy during 

 operations ; will fight against the surgeon, and endeavour to 

 remove from his clutches ; yet they will tell you that this effect 

 was not produced by pain, and that all they were conscious of 

 was some strange and probably pleasant dream. To such an ex- 

 tent, in one of my own patients, was suffering exhibited, both by 

 actions and by cries, that I was under the impression that the 

 experiment was a fadure; nor was I set right till some days after, 

 when I heard from her friends, and subsequently from herself, 

 that she had been perfectly unconscious of pain dining the 

 whole time. In fact, we may say generally that persons who 

 are rendered insensible by chloroform, are divisible into two 

 classes — those who are perfectly quiet under the infliction of 

 any irritation, and those who act as if they were suffering 

 severely ; yet both of these, on their return to consciousness, 

 express themselves equally certain that they have felt no 

 pain. 



" Again, writhing and contortion may be seen in their most 

 aggravated form — that of convulsions — without there being 

 any suffering connected with them. A fish, when first taken 

 out of the water, flounders about with tremendous force, and 

 appears to be making the most frantic efforts to return to its 

 watery element ; but we cannot believe that any pain is pre- 

 sent, as there is evidence to prove that the creature is dead 

 long before the convulsions cease : they are produced by the 

 effects of the stagnation of the blood and the irritation of the 

 atmosphere on the muscular system. I have repeatedly placed 

 a- convulsed fish in the water ; its struggles then have ceased, 

 and it has shown unequivocal signs of being quite dead. 

 The eels, which have a peculiar arrangement for keeping their 

 gills dry, and in whose system the blood is not soon stag- 

 nated, do not flounder on being taken out of the water, as 



