322 PROFESSOR E. A. SCHAFER AND DR H. J. SCHARLIEB ON THE 
EFFECT OF CHLOROFORM UPON THE HEart. 
Our experiments abundantly illustrate the fact, which is now unreservedly conceded, 
that of all ordinary anesthetics chloroform is the one which produces the most 
deleterious effect upon both heart and respirations. Nothing is more striking than the 
comparison of tracings from chloroform experiments, such as those shown in figs. 5, 6, 
and 7, with one in which ether is the anesthetic agent (fig. 8). We have further 
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Fic. 8.—This tracing was taken from the same animal as fig. 7, and immediately before it. Air saturated or nearly saturated 
with ether was inhaled through the trachea tube, between the two points marked by the signal. Previously to this the 
dog was very lightly anesthetised with chloroform, corneal reflex being present. Compare the effect of ether upon the 
blood-pressure and respiration with chloroform, in these tracings. 
investigated the action of chloroform upon the heart im situ with the chest opened, after 
the method used by M‘William ;* and also after removal of the organ from the body, 
with the coronary vessels perfused by Langendorff’s method. 
In confirmation of previous observers, we find that the effect upon the organ when 
its nervous connections are severed, or when the activity of the vagus is abolished by 
atropine (fig. 9), is to produce a gradual weakening of the contractions (without any 
marked slowing, although this may appear towards the end of a fatal experiment) 
* Jour. Phys., vol. xiii. p. 860, 1892. + Pfliiger’s Arch , vol. 1xi. p. 291,°1895. 
