502 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. [Sess. 
In experiment LXI. the chloroform in the liver was also determined, 
and 27*7 mg. per 100 grm. was found to be present, showing a fixation of 
chloroform to that organ under hypodermic as well as under gastric 
administration. 
Conclusions. 
These observations show that, in the rabbit, chloroform when given by 
the respiratory passages is rapidly taken up by the blood, and that anesthesia 
is produced when the amount reaches about 30 to 40 mg. per 100 c.cm. 
It is then rapidly eliminated, so that, in normal cases, by the end of two 
hours it has almost entirely disappeared from the blood. This elimination, 
however, is subject to marked variation, and at the end of two hours there 
may still remain in the blood no less than 20 mg. of the drug, and even 
after 3J hours 10 mgrs. may remain. 
These experiments seem to explain the occurrence of late chloroform - 
poisoning in a certain number of cases where the drug remaining in the 
body has acted on the tissues for a prolonged period. 
When given by the mouth, chloroform is slowly absorbed, the percentage 
amount reaching: its maximum between four and five hours after adminis- 
tration, and then slowly disappearing. The amount taken up by the blood 
after the administration of about 1 c.c. per 1000 grm. is rarely sufficient to 
produce anaesthesia — in only one case did it reach 32 mgrs., and in that 
case the animal was not anaesthetised, but merely staggery. In all proba- 
bility, the fixation of the drug by the proteins and corpuscles prevented its 
full action on the nerve centres. 
When chloroform is given hypodermically, absorption is generally more 
rapid than when it is given by the mouth, and the percentage in the blood 
reaches its maximum in about four or five hours. The amount present is 
rarely sufficient to produce anaesthesia, but in one case it was produced when 
only 18*7 mgrs. were present. In one case when the respiration and heart 
stopped, no less than 60’9 mgrs. were found in the blood at the end of three 
hours; in another, at the end of 5J hours 31*6 mgrs. were present, and yet 
no anaesthesia, but merely staggering, was observed. 
These observations show that the more marked action of chloroform on 
the metabolism when it is administered by the mouth or hypodermically is 
probably to be explained by the more prolonged action of the drug upon 
the protoplasm. The more marked action of the drug when administered 
by the mouth, as compared with the action of the same dose hypodermically 
administered, is probably due to the more direct action upon the liver cells, 
and possibly to its less rapid elimination, indicated by its more marked 
accumulation (see figure). 
( Issued separately August 21, 1908.) 
