Be REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE. ee 
Percentage of Chloroform in Human Blood at the Stages of the 
Vanishing of the Corneal Reflex.—In order to ascertain whether the 
percentage of chloroform in the blood.of man was of the same order of 
magnitude as in the blood of cats at a similar stage of anesthesia, the 
following experiments were made: Three samples of blood were drawn 
by means of a syringe from the arm of a patient under chloroform at 
the point when the eye reflexes were just vanishing. The samples 
were taken within three minutes, and during this period the anesthetist 
endeavoured to keep the patient at this stage. 
The blood wag analysed by Nicloux’ method, with the following 
results :— 
Sample J, - : - . 0:0126 gramme per cent. of blood, 
Sample Il, , P n - 00117 ” » ” 
Sample Il], , , : - 0:0173 ” ” ” 
These figures are comparable with those found in animals. 
APPENITEX “Wi. 
The Comparative Physiological Power of Chloroform, Ether, and 
Alcohol, gauged by Intravenous Injection. By Dr. A. D. WaLLER 
and Mr. W. L. Symzs. 
Reckoning, from the observations quoted in Appendix V. (p. 307), 
that the average quantity of chloroform in the blood of fully anesthetised 
animals is about 25 mgms. per 100 gms. of blood, considering further 
that 100 c.c. of saline solution can take into solution 500 mgms. of 
chloroform, it was to be expected that it should be possible to maintain 
complete anesthesia by intravenous injection of saline containing chloro- 
form in solution. 
Taking, for instance, a 2 kilo. cat containing, say, 100 c.c. of blood, 
the injection of 10 c.c. of such ‘chloroform saline ’ introduces into the 
circulation 50 mgms. of chloroform—i.e., it is possible by this means to 
introduce no less than 500 mgms. of chloroform into the circulation, an 
amount far in excess of an anesthetic or even a lethal percentage. 
The possibility of inducing and maintaining anesthesia by intra- 
venous injections of emulsions of ether and of chloroform had, indeed, 
been shown by Arloing.t But considerations of convenience and 
precision led us to employ solutions, in spite of the greater dilution 
entailed. 
For obvious reasons we could not induce anesthesia by this means; 
we did so in the usual way by ether vapour, and the necessary pre- 
liminary operations, viz., tracheotomy and the introduction of cannule 
into the carotid artery and femoral vein, were carried out under full 
anesthesia. From this point onwards anesthesia was maintained com- 
plete by periodical injections into the venous system of 10 c.c. of ‘ chloro- 
form (or ether) saline.’ 
In a first experiment a 3 kilo. cat was maintained in profound 
anesthesia for two hours by fifteen such injections, containing a total 
amount of 750 mgms. of chloroform, i.e., at room temperature, 150 c.c. 
of chloroform vapour. 
Our object in adopting this method of anesthesia was to institute a 
strict comparison between the effects of chloroform and ether and other 
} Arloing, Recherches expérimentales comparatives sur Vaction du chloral, du 
chloroforme et de Véther, Paris, 1879, 
