476 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1944 
There are many side reactions that may occur after the injection 
of an anesthetic agent intrathecally. There is a loss of motor tone 
which follows the paralysis of the vasoconstrictor fibers in the anterior 
nerve roots. The blood pressure consequently may fall to a very low 
level requiring the use of such drugs as ephedrine. Radiculitis, neuri- 
tis, meningitis, and palsies are some of the undesirable anesthetic 
sequelae that have occurred with the use of spinal anesthetics. 
OUTLOOK FOR THE FUTURE 
Perhaps there is no field in medicine where achievements have been 
as great and as far reaching as have been the advances in anesthesia. 
The scope of this review purposefully excluded advances in the tech- 
niques of anesthesia such as the invention of the anesthetic rebreath- 
ing machines, the endotracheal tube, the use of moist soda lime 
and conducting rubber devices for the grounding of static sparks. 
All of these have made definite contributions to anesthetic success and 
safety. 
Future researches are certainly to be directed toward the end of de- 
veloping a better volatile anesthetic agent than ether. It appears 
indeed to be possible. Intravenous anesthesia needs to be made safer. 
Other agents need to be investigated further and better antidotes than 
are now available must be found. The future must investigate further 
and understand more clearly, from the point of view of cellular 
physiology, what is meant by that profound hiatus in consciousness, 
so glibly referred to as surgical anesthesia. 
REFERENCES 
(1) Leaxst, CHAuNcey D., and CHEN, MEI-YU. 
1930. The anesthetic properties of certain unsaturated ethers. Proc. Soc. 
Exp. Biol. and Med., vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 151-154. 
(2) RuieH, Wirm1rAM L., and Magor, RANDOLPH T. 
1931. The preparation and properties of pure divinyl ether. Journ. Amer. 
Chem. Soc., vol. 58, No. 7, p. 2662. 
(3) Lucas, G. H. W., and HENDERSON, V. E. 
1929. A new anaesthetic gas: Cyclopropane. Canadian Med. Assoc. Journ., 
vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 173-175. 
(4) Rossrns, B. H. 
1940. Cyclopropane anesthesia. 1st ed. Williams and Wilkins Co., Balti- 
more, Md. 
(5) Krantz, JoHN C., Jz., CARR, C. JELLEFF, FoRMAN, SyLvAn E., and Evans, 
WILLIAM E. Jr. 
1940. Anesthesia. I. The anesthetic action of cyclopropyl methyl ether. 
Journ. Pharmacol. and Exp. Therap., vol. 69, No. 3, pp. 207-220. 
(6) Brack, ConsTance, SHANNON, GrorGE E., and Krantz, JoHN C., JR. 
1940. Studies with cyclopropyl methyl ether (cyprome ether) in man. 
Anesthesiology, vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 274-279. 
