154 



NATURE 



[Dec. 19, 1889 



Glories. 



Mr. James McConnel asks in Nature (vol. xl. p. 594) 

 for acccounts of the colours and angular dimensions of glories. 

 I saw a good instance of the phenomenon on Lake Superior, 

 June 17, 1888, and, having had my attention called to the value 

 of accurate descriptions in such cases by Mr. Henry Sharpe's 

 " Brocken Spectres," I examined it carefully. 



The shadow of my head on the mist was surrounded by a 

 brilliant halo or glory, .slaty-white around the head, followed by 

 orange and red ; then a circle of blue, green, and red, and the 

 same colours repeated more faintly. The diameter of the 

 innermost and brightest circle of red, as measured on the 

 graduated semicircle of a clinometer, was 4|°. There was also 

 a very distinct, but nearly white, fog-bow outside, of 42° radius, 

 as measured in the same way. A. P. Coleman. 



Faraday Hall, Victoria University, Cobourg, Ontario. 



Fossil Rhizocarps. 



Referring to Sir William Dawson's note on this subject in 

 Nature of November 7 (p. 10), we regret that we have been 

 unable to trace the original source from which the statement in 

 our " Hand-book of Cryptogamic Botany " was derived, relative 

 to the fructification of Protosalvinia or Sporangites. The sentence 

 will therefore, with apologies to Sir W. Dawson, be removed 

 from future editions of the work. 



Alfred W. Bennett. 



The Arc-Light. 



Would you or any of your readers kindly tell me where I 

 may find an account of any of the latest methods of determining 

 the back E.M.F. of the arc-light? Joseph McGrath. 



Mount Sidney, Wellington Place, Dublin. 



THE HYDERABAD CHLOROFORM 

 COMMISSION. 



nPHE appointment of a Commission at the present 

 -^ time to investigate the action of chloroform as an 

 anaesthetic might to many seem an anomaly. For the 

 use of chloroform as an anaesthetic was introduced over 

 forty years ago: it was in November, 1847, that Prof. 

 Simpson, of Edinburgh, first brought this valuable agent 

 before the medical profession. Since that time, the use 

 of chloroform has enormously extended, especially in 

 our country, and although there are other valuable agents 

 of the same class— such as ether and nitrous-oxide gas — 

 yet there is a universality of opinion that the employment 

 of chloroform has in many cases a special advantage. 

 Considering the extensive use of the agent, and the pro- 

 gress which has been made of late years in the study of 

 the action of drugs in man, it certainly is surprising that 

 the knowledge of the effect of chloroform on the different 

 parts and organs of the body is not complete. This is 

 not altogether from want of attention to the subject ; 

 because, previous to the Hyderabad Commission, at least 

 two Commissions were appointed with the view of investi- 

 gating the action of chloroform and its occasional serious 

 effects. These Commissions were appointed by the Royal 

 Medical and Chirurgical Society of London, and by the 

 British Medical Association, and they were composed 

 of men who, from their knowledge of experiment and 

 acquaintance with practical medicine, were competent to 

 discuss the question. The two Commissions arrived at the 

 same conclusions as the distinguished French man of 

 science, Claude Bernard, had published years before, and 

 these conclusions tallied with the teaching of the great 

 London medical schools. 



Chloroform and other anaesthetic agents have a peculiar 

 position : they are powerful drugs used, not for disease 

 itself, but for the purpose of allowing an operation to be 

 performed, preventing the pain which would otherwise 

 be felt, and relaxing the contraction and sparms of the 

 muscles, so that the surgeon can more readily and accu- 



rately operate. The administration of the anaesthetic is 

 something, then, outside the diseased condition ; so that 

 its use ought theoretically to be perfectly harmless to the 

 sick person. Unfortunately it is not always so, and 

 deaths from chloroform are, although rare, by no means 

 unknown. The administrator of chloroform is therefore 

 a person of great responsibility : he has to watch carefully 

 the effect of the agent on the patient, to notice any 

 unfavourable change that occurs, and to adopt measures 

 to counteract any bad effects which appear. The 

 knowledge of the mode in which chloroform causes 

 danger to the life of the patient is therefore of vast im- 

 portance ; for, if the administrator knows the signs of 

 danger, there is more likelihood of counteracting a fatal 

 result. These fatal results, which are among the saddest 

 that occur in medical practice, ought, if possible, to be 

 avoided. 



What, then, is the danger to life of chloroform ? Or, to 

 speak more fully, what particular part of the body does 

 chloroform injuriously affect when there is danger ? This is 

 just the point that the various Commissions have attempted 

 to settle. In the Scotch schools, more especially that of 

 Edinburgh, it has been taught that the great danger of 

 chloroform was in failure of respiration ; meaning by this 

 that the danger-signal of chloroform was the stoppage or 

 irregularity of the breathing. As a corollary to this belief, 

 it was considered that the heart was only affected after 

 the breathing had become interfered with ; that, in fact, 

 the respiration stopping, the blood was not oxygenated, 

 so the heart stopped beating. This was the teaching of 

 the great Edinburgh surgeon, Syme. The English (and 

 especially the London) teaching was almost directly 

 opposed to this. It was taught, and is still taught in the 

 London schools, that the great danger from chloroform 

 arose from its effect on the heart, which stopped beating 

 before the respiration ceased. Which, then, of these two 

 doctrines is true, or are both true ? 



The decision of this question is, as we have stated, one 

 of vast importance ; but it must be remembered that, 

 whichever is right, the administrator of anaesthetics always 

 pays attention to both the beating of the heart and the 

 regularity of the respiration. Surgeon-Major Lawrie, one 

 of the prominent members of the Hyderabad Chloroform 

 Commission, says that "it is possible to avert all risk to 

 the heart by devoting the entire attention to the respiration 

 during chloroform administration." Medical opinion in 

 England, both of that of experts (professional aneesthetists) 

 and of the general profession, is distinctly opposed to this 

 view ; and the administrator who does not attend to the 

 pulse, as well as to the breathing, is certainly neglecting 

 one of the main paths by which Nature shows us what is 

 going on inside the organism. 



From the statement of Surgeon-Major Lawrie just 

 quoted, it will be seen that the Hyderabad Chloroform 

 Commission came to the conclusion that the danger from 

 the administration arose, not from the heart, but from the 

 respiration. This view was strongly combated in our con- 

 temporary, the Lancet. The importance of the question 

 led the Nizam of Hyderabad to obtain the services of a 

 scientific medical man from England to go out to India 

 and attempt to settle the question. Dr. Lauder Brunton, 

 F.R.S., consented to go ; and, well known as he is for his 

 life-long devotion to the experimental investigation of the 

 action of remedies and their practical appHcation, it was 

 considered probable that his aid in the research would 

 lead to interesting and important results. From the 

 somewhat scanty news of the results which have been 

 telegraphed to England, it seems likely that the investi- 

 gation now progressing at Hyderabad will tend to 

 revolutionize existing views as to the action of chloroform. 

 Dr. Brunton's views as regards the dangers of chloro- 

 form before he left England were clearly expressed in his 

 well-known " Text-book of Pharmacology." In it he says 

 that " the dangers resulting from the employment of 



