382 USE OF ARTIFICIAL RESPIRATION AND TRANSFUSION. 



rattlesnake. Weir Mitchell* found that the heart might be 

 kept pulsating for a long time by means of artificial respiration; 

 but his results do not seem to have been so encouraging as to 

 lead him to propose it as a means of saving life. Dr. Fayrer 

 and I have been more fortunate, and on one occasion we have 

 succeeded in keeping the heart of a rabbit beating for eight 

 hours after the animal was apparently dead. Nor had the heart 

 ceased to pulsate even then ; but the hour was late, the room 

 was cold, the assistant was no doubt tired, and the experiment 

 was consequently given up. Although respiration had been 

 continued for a much longer time than is usually necessary with 

 woorara, the animal gave no signs of returning sensibility. This 

 seems to indicate a difference between the poisons. On the 

 probable cause of this, I shall have something to say in a later 

 part of this paper. 



The service which artificial respiration renders in cases where 

 breathing has ceased in consequence of asphyxia, whether due 

 to drowning, strangling, or poisoning by carbonic acid in brewer's 

 vats or close rooms, is so generally recognised, that it is un- 

 necessary to say anything about it here. Its use in poisoning 

 by strychnia is not so well known, and, so far as I am aware, 

 has only been tested upon animals. Before I proceed to speak 

 of this, it may be well to say a few words in explanation of the 

 term apnoea, which I shall have to use, as it is employed by 

 physiologists in a different sense from that which is attached to 

 it by many physicians. On the meaning of dyspnoea, both 

 physicians and physiologists are agreed ; and both apply it to 

 the violent respiratory efforts which occur when the blood is 

 imperfectly aerated. Apnoea, however, is not unfrequently used 

 by physicians in the sense of extreme dyspnaa, where there is 

 excessive difficulty of respiration. Physiologists apply it to a 

 very different condition — viz., that in which the blood is so 

 excessively aerated that there is no need for breathing at all. 

 This will be much better understood by the reader if he will 

 try a simple experiment on himself. Let him note how many 

 seconds he can hold his breath, and he will find that he can 

 only do so for a very short time. Let him then quickly take 



* Researches on the Venom of the BattlesnaJce, 1861^ p. 81. 



