174 



REPORT 1866. 



object of trying to make the substances under notice of practical utility to 

 mankind. 



Nitrite of Amtl as a Remeby. 



I first experimented to ascertain whether nitrite of amyl, which, as we have 

 seen, exerts so decided an effect in quickening the action of the heart when it 

 is inhaled by the living animal, might be turned to account as a means for 

 stimulating the heart into action in cases where that organ has suddenly 

 ceased to beat, as in cases of fatal fainting, in drowning, in sunstroke and 

 lightning-stroke, in death by chloroform, and in suffocation from other nar- 

 cotic vapours. To test this, the substance was introduced into the body in 

 two ways — by artificial respii'ation, and by transfusion directly into the heart 

 through the arteries. By neither of these methods could any decided effect 

 be produced. By the first (the artificial respiration) a spasmodic action of the 

 diaphragm and a peculiar action of the muscles of the nose are produced for a 

 short time ; but the effect is very transient. By the second, the effect seemed 

 to be that the action of the heart was the more decidedly and rapidly para- 

 lyzed. In one case, in connexion with my friend Mr. Gay, after repeating in 

 the dissecting-room the experiment of the injection of a dead limb of the 

 human subject with oxygenated blood, I introduced a free current of a blood 

 containing one minim of the nitrite of amyl to the eight ounces. The muscles 

 were by this means evenly and steadily injected, and the odour of the amyl- 

 compound was distinctly perceived ; but there was no sign of muscular action 

 in response to the injection, and muscles laid bare and subjected to irritation 

 were still quiescent. 



For these experiments I invented a new instrument for transfusion, which 

 works so simply and effectually that I may be excused, perhaps, if I diverge 

 for a moment to describe it : the practical physiologist wiU find it of great 

 value in many inquii-ies. This instrument, as shown in the diagram, con- 



sists of a glass cylinder (A), with a flexible tube (B) running from its lower 



