TREATMENT OF STRYCHNINE POISONING WITH 

 CHLOROFORM. 



By A. 0. Shaklee. 

 (From the Department of Pharmacology, Philippine Medical School, Manila, P. I.) 



' An experimental study of the treatment of strychnine poisoning was 

 begun by the author earlier in the present year under the direction 

 of Dr. S. J. Meltzer in the laboratory of the Rockefeller Institute for 

 Medical Besearch, New York City. Two communications have since 

 been published * in which reports were given of the treatment with 

 curarin and artificial respiration by the continuous intratracheal in- 

 sufflation of air by the Meltzer-Auer method. Another paper will soon 

 be published on the treatment with ether. It was found in these earlier 

 investigations that the lives of nearly all, if not all, dogs poisoned with 

 twice the fatal dose of strychnine administered intravenously can be 

 saved by the proper application of either of these methods. In the 

 treatment with eurarine, a small dose of atropine and considerable 

 quantities of Einger's solution administered intravenously together with 

 artificial respiration seemed to be essential to success. In that with ether, 

 recovery could be secured with ether alone, but the course of treatment 

 was shortened by the intravenous administration of Einger's solution, and 

 rendered more certain by an exact regulation of the dosage of ether by 

 means of insufflation and a mixing valve 2 for mixing the ether vapor 

 with air in definite and constant proportions. The treatment with 

 eurarine seemed to demand close and constant supervision, while that with 

 ether required comparatively little attention and caused no anxiety. 



In the present investigation it is proposed to make a comparative 

 study of the treatment of strychnine poisoning by means of ether and 

 by means of chloroform. This seems desirable because of the fact that 

 works on toxicology recommend the use of chloroform or ether without 

 comment on their relative merits, or recommend chloroform without 

 mentioning ether; and it seems important in view of what is already 

 known of their relative toxicities to have some definite experimental 



1 Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol. & Med. (1910), 7, 96-97; Berl. klin. Wchnsch. (1910), 

 39, 1776-1778. 



*Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol. & Med. (1910), 7, 158-160. 



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