472 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. [Sess. 
XXXII. — On the Effects on the Metabolism of Chloroform admin- 
istered by Different Channels. By D. Noel Paton, M.D. 
(From the Physiological Laboratory of the University of Glasgow, 
and the Laboratory of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh.) 
(Read June 15, 1908. MS. received June 18, 1908.) 
Preliminary. 
Death under the administration of chloroform as an anaesthetic is an 
accident which, although fortunately rare, is well known to all ; but the 
occurrence of a late poisoning, sometimes manifesting itself several days 
after the administration of the drug, is less well recognised. This too is 
rare, but its occurrence indicates the very profound effect which such a 
drug may exercise upon living tissues. 
A very large amount of work has been done upon the immediate in- 
fluence of chloroform upon the nervous system and upon the circulatory 
and respiratory mechanisms, but few observations on its more lasting effects 
upon the general metabolism have been recorded. 
A protoplasm poison so powerful as chloroform might be expected to 
modify profoundly the chemical changes in the body. Upon the cells of 
the liver, after removal from the body, I found in 1893 that chloroform has 
a very marked action, accelerating the disintegrative necrobiotic changes 
{Pliil. Trans. Roy. Soc., vol. 185, p. 248), and at the same time accelerating 
the conversion of glycogen to glucose. That, during life, it has a marked 
effect upon the metabolism of protein, has been shown by Salkowski 
{Virchow’s Arch., Bd. 115, p. 339) and by Strassmann {Virchows Arch., 
1889), both of whom found that its administration caused an increased 
excretion of nitrogen in fasting animals. Kast and Mester {Ztsch. f. ldin. 
Med., Bd. xviii., p. 469, 1891) also got similar results. Yidal {C.R. de la Soc. 
biol., 1896, p. 474) records a series of observations on the excretion of nitro- 
gen in the human subject before and after operations of different degrees of 
severity, in which chloroform had been administered, and he finds that, 
irrespective of the character of the operation, there is a rise in the excretion 
of nitrogen, when compared with its ingestion. He also investigated the 
question on fasting rabbits, and found that in these animals the excretion 
of nitrogen, after the separation of the albumin, is markedly increased by 
the simple inhalation of the drug. 
Thompson {Brit. Med. Jour., vol. i., 1906, p. 608) describes the result of a 
study of the immediate effect of the administration of chloroform and of 
ether upon the urinary secretion. His experiments extended over two to 
