164 REPORT — 1870. 



intents dead, except that there is no contraction of the pupil ; indeed the 

 pvipil is dilated, and the lens stands out perfectly clear and bright. They 

 may be left in tliis apparently lifeless state for half an hour in the vapour 

 ■without danger. Taken out, gently washed with water, and left in the oi^en 

 air at 60° to G5° F., they invariably show signs of muscular movement in an 

 hour and a half or two hours ; then they recommence to breathe, next the 

 heart begins to beat, and in a short time they recover perfectly, precisely as 

 if they were awakening from the torpor of cold. 



Respecting this recovery there is observed a phenomenon which to me is 

 entirely new. It is the case with all narcotic and paralyzing agents which 

 I have tested, that they produce paralysis of the voluntary muscles before 

 they cause paralysis of the muscles of respiration and the heart. Also in 

 rccoverj' from the narcotic state, the heart first lights up, then the respira- 

 tion, and finally the muscles of voluntary power. But under mercaptan 

 the reverse obtains, the voluntary muscles lose their irritability last and 

 regain it first during recovery. 



The pai-alyzing action of mercaptan on muscle suggested to me that it 

 might be useful for the arrest of tetanic convulsion, but experiment gave a 

 negative to this hypothesis. It is true that the action of strychnine can be 

 modified by this agent, but nothing more can be done with it. The passive 

 muscles, so soon as the respiration is paralyzed, pass into slow but firm 

 cadaveric rigidity. 



A point of great physiological interest attaches to the mode of elimination 

 of siilphur alcohol from tlie living body. Insoluble in the blood, and at the 

 same time volatile, it makes its way out of the economy mainly by respira- 

 tion, conveying an odour which is identical with the odour of the breath in 

 some forms of disease. It would be out of place for me to enter on the ques- 

 tion of disease here at any length; but I must not refrain from suggesting to 

 physicians that a new field of inquiry is open to them in investigating the 

 (]uestion of the presence of sulphur compounds in the air expired by their pa- 

 tients. In disease the breaking up of the albuminoid textures is attended 

 within the body by the formation of volatile sulphuretted organic compounds, 

 and the circumstance of the detection of such compounds in expired air 

 would, I think, prove a most useful stiidy in the art of diagnosis. When we 

 know how minute a proportion of sulphur alcohol will produce muscular de- 

 pression and feebleness of the heart, we may fairly infer that the forma- 

 tion of sulphur compounds spontaneously within the body would account for 

 many examples of excessive temporary prostration, for the cause of which 

 we have as yet no satisfactory explanation. 



The mode of action of sulphur alcohol appeared to me at first to be 

 through direct interference with the oxidation of the blood. I believed it to 

 be an agent which arrested the natural oxidation of the blood by contact, 

 but I am now not decided on this point. The substauce inflicts no im- 

 portant structural lesion on the blood or tissues so long as it can find exit 

 from the body ; but Avhile it is present it sustains a peculiar action on the 

 nervous organism, not leading, I think, to any modification of structure, 

 but causing exhaustion or arrest of motor power and disordered cerebral 

 manifestation. 



I have spoken thus far only of the action of sulphur alcohol, but it has 

 some practical value to which, in a line or two, I may refer. It is an anti- 

 septic, but gives to the matter it preserves an objectionable odour, wliich is 

 not altogether removed even bj^ boiling water. It is an excellent i)reparation 

 for making a sulphur-bath, and would prove, in cases where sulphur has to 



