TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 125 



such a course ; and this is the experience of a man eighty years of age, who has 

 been for some years an invalid. Neither during or since the treatment has any 

 irritation of tlie bhidder &c. been felt, and the urine has been for many months 

 perfectly clear and free from mucus ; it has never been ammoniacal when voided, 

 and has contained no albumen. The calculus was judged to be uric from the 

 previous passage of crj'stals of uric acid. Since the treatment no uric acid has 

 appeared in it, except once recentlj', and 2o grains of citrate of potash are found 

 suHicient to prevent its recurrence. 



There is one prominent chemical fact attending these experiments which remains 

 to be noticed, viz. a great diminution in the quantity of the mineral acids subse- 

 quent to the allcaline treatment ; whilst from 120 to 150 grains of citrate of potash 

 were required for neutrality in August 18G8, in March and April 1869 from 30 to 

 60 grains sufficed for the same purpose. Dr. Thudichum's analysis in September 

 1868 gave — of sulphuric acid ol'l, of phosphoric 4o-7 grains. The analysis made 

 in the author's laboratory in March 1869 gave, sulphuric acid 25-9, of phosphoric 

 34-2 grains, — a difterence scarcely to be accounted for without reference to the alka- 

 line treatment undergone in the first three mouths of the interval ; and it is worthy 

 of remark that a similar reduction seems to have taken place in the amount of urio 

 acid. 



On the Phrjsiohgy of Sleep and of Chloroform Ancesthesia. 

 By Chaeles Kidd, M.D., M.R.'C.S.E., Sfc. 



In further continuation of previous researches as to the clinical value and pecu- 

 liarities of chloroform, ether, and other ansesthetics, the author invited discussion 

 on some conflicting opinions and ideas amongst physiologists, as to the precise 

 nature of anaesthesia itself, particularly under nitrous protoxide, contrasted with 

 chloral and chloroform ; the relation of sleep to anaesthesia ; the exact physiology 

 of sleep, so intimately bound up with medical treatment, in mania, fever, delirium 

 tremens, puerperal convulsions, and other diseases, where chloroform is sometimes 

 inadmissible, but at other times of great value, as in the " shock" of large surgical 

 or mechanical injuries to limbs, according as the practitioner has to treat pain and 

 irritation, or, on the other hand, exhaustion and inflammation. 



Two, if not three forms of accident, as seen in hospital practice, as contradis- 

 tinguished from the simple suflbcation of animals in experiments on the methy- 

 lene series, were explained ; the chief one, sudden failure, not of the heart as 

 popularly believed, but of the laryngeal recurrent nerve and others distributed to 

 the larynx, causing spasm, or sudden apnoea. Deaths have occurred from the use of 

 " ether mixtures," and while every precaution was taken ; and while using the 

 '' Clover-apparatus," supposed to be safe ; but in a vast number of cases, by proper 

 precaution at the moment, and notably by use of electricity, the danger may 

 be warded off. Fatal accidents, in fact, are most common, not in the deep nar- 

 cotism of chloroform, but in the early excitement stage when reflex action is still 

 active, and chiefly hitherto in healthy active adidts for trivial small operations, 

 rather than in old unhealthy subjects with fatty heart or in large operations. 



Again, connected not indirectly with the nature of antesthesia, is the nature of 

 ordinary "sleep," the latter a state of rest of the active molecular work previously 

 going on, with a restoration of the power. Can this condition depend on venous con- 

 gestion of the choroid plexus and such vascular parts, or on the opposite state of 

 the brain vessels ? Facts abound on each side, yet the question is undecided 

 though at the threshold of a world of phenomena and accurate treatment in fevers, 

 delirium tremens, mania, bad surgical accidents, with delirium, &c. Nearly all 

 our recent vast improvements in surgery, ovariotomy, especially large amputations, 

 Ca^sarean section, are due to chloroform, and probably better views as to "shock," 

 and how .sleep is to be obtained, and rest for the nervous system ; chloroform in 

 puerperal convulsions, in tedious cases requiring "version," not only gives rest to 

 the nervous system, but is a directly curative agent, as well as taking away pain. 

 The author next illustrated various half-cleared up points as to sleep and anajs- 

 thesia, by what has been learned during the year of the extraordinary action of the 



