Dept.] 
NATURAL SCIENCES OP PHILADELPHIA. 
11 
coaclasion arrived at was, that any increase in the danger of ansesthesia from 
chloroform could hardly be expected to result from the addition to it of pure 
alcohol. This, of course, would not apply to the ethereal or other substances 
often associated with it. 
Dr. Hammond mentioned that the preparation alluded to in his paper con- 
tained, besides other impurities, a small percentage of muriatic acid ; Yerj much 
less, however, than had been reported as contained in a specimen employed in 
one of the London hospitals. 
Dr. J. G. Morris supposed that the muriatic acid might have had some influ- 
ence in causing death : the lungs being congested, and the right side of the 
heart loaded with blood, while the left side was empty ; as would be the case if 
the pulmonic circulation were interfered with by an irrespirable substance. 
Dr. W. F. Atlee considered the occurrence of vomiting, shortly before death, 
to have been an evidence that the brain was powerfully affected, which alone 
might suffice to cause death. 
Dr. Hays observed that it is impossible to account for the deaths which oc- 
cur under the inhalation of chloroform. Very recently a case has been recorded 
which strikingly exhibits this : in which the chloroform employed was carefully 
examined, and found entirely pure ; the quantity used was small, the person 
administering it, one experienced in its use in an English Hospital ; and every 
care was exercised even as to its sufficient dilution with air. The body of the 
patient was examined after death, and nothing was found to explain the result. 
In cases of undoubted fatty degeneration of the heart, chloroform has repeatedly 
been given with safety: one ■v^riter upon the subject going so far as to say that 
such degeneration affords no objection to its use. In some instances the same 
patient had inhaled chloroform, from the same bottle, two or three times, with- 
out disadvantage, and yet it proved fatal to him at last. 
Dr. Leidy had noticed the same uncertainty or variability of action of chlo- 
roform in experiments upon animals. A strong, healthy cat was destroyed by 
breathing an amount of chloroform, which several others, at the same time, 
inhaled harmlessly. In his own person, Dr. Leidy had found one of the most 
marked effects of chloroform to be a total loss of muscular power. 
Dr. B. H. CoATES believed chloroform to act poisonously, by directly dimin- 
ishing the action of the heart. The absolute amount of vital power in different 
individuals or organs cannot be calculated ; but, if the heart be in a state of 
fatty degeneration, its vitality must be thereby diminished. The rapidity of 
absorption by the lungs, as demonstrated in experiments recorded by Dr. Coates 
and others, aids in baffling our calculations. The admixture of other articles 
with chloroform increases the ambiguity ; and to avoid danger, the greatest 
care is needed in regard to the dose. 
Dr. F. G. Smith inquired whether the state of consciousness of the patient was 
noted in either of the cases alluded to ? 
Dr. Hammond stated that the man whose case had been narrated in his paper 
was not conscious during the period immediately preceding death. 
Dr. F. G. Smith observed that the action of chloroform may be traced more 
directly in the muscular than in the nervous organs ; causing a destruction of 
the irritability of muscular fibre. An analogy is presented to this in some 
experiments reported by Dr. Rand, in which the leaflets of mimosa pudica, 
exposed to chloroform, lost all their contractibility. Some, at least, of the cases 
of sudden death under anaesthesia may be explicable upon this principle. Hav- 
ing been repeatedly placed under anaesthetic influence, Dr. Smith had found, 
that while his consciousness was not at all affected, being able to note the beat- 
ing of his heart, and to hear and see all that was going on around him, perhaps 
with even excited sensibility, a total inability to exert the voluntary muscles 
was produced. The sensation might be described as that of being flattened out. 
Dr. W. F. Atlee recalled the suggestive fact, that a few drops of chloroform 
let fall on a bundle of ciliated epithelium of the frog, will arrest the ciliary 
motion at once. 
1858.] 
