348 



ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. C. 77 



pressed the utmost surprise at seeing the wound in 

 her arm, as she had felt nothing of the operation. 

 She had, in fact, been unconscious from within half 

 an hour of the poison. Had Claude Bernard's 

 dictum been correct, she ought, though paralysed as 

 to her muscles, to have been throughout the whole 

 time conscious and sensitive. Probably the truth 

 is that, like all other nerve-poisons, the effect of 

 curare varies with the dose. The muscular nerves 

 are the first affected, then the sensory, and finally 

 the central nervous system. As a matter of fact, 

 however, morphia or some other narcotic is always 

 given in addition to curare when it is used in 

 laboratory work in England." [Edinburgh Review, 

 July 1899.) 



Here are two very definite statements of the 

 action of curare : one by Professor Rliffer, who was 

 in 1893 Hon. Secretary of the Institute of Preven- 

 tive Medicine ; the other by a writer who seems to 

 speak from experience. Anyhow, curare is not an 

 anaesthetic under the Act : and, in the United 

 Kingdom, it is seldom used at all, and never alone, 

 in any experiment involving any sort or kind of 

 painful operation. In every case of this kind, a 

 recognised anaesthetic must be given, and is given. 



III. — Reports of Inspectors under the Act. 



The Annual Reports of the Inspectors under the 

 Act can be procured from Messrs Eyre & Spottis- 

 woode, Government Publishers, East Harding 

 Street, London, E.C. For want of space, only the 

 three last reports can be put here, without their 

 tables. 



