UNDER CHLOROFORM. 
17 
years 220-230 of our era, gave to his patients, when he had to 
make a deep incision or moxa, a preparation of hemp (Ma-yo), 
and at the end of some moments he, the patient, became as in- 
sensible as if he had been drunk or deprived of life. Then the 
operation was performed without pain. From the rapidity with 
which the insensibility by this author is said to have been pro- 
duced, Snow is of opinion, that the fumes of the hemp must 
have been inhaled while the substance was being burned ; and 
in support of this view, he quotes that the ancient Scythians, 
according to Herodotus, were in the habit of inhaling the fumes 
of hemp until they produced drunkenness. This hypothesis is in 
accordance with other experience, the practice being an old one 
to administer the fumes or smoke of various burning substances 
by inhalation. The application of the ammoniacal fumes of 
the burning feather is a' case directly in point, and another very 
ancient practice in the treatment of bees is equally significant. 
For many ages it has been common in this country, and in 
various parts of the Continent, to rob the beehive of its rich 
contents without destroying the industrious occupants of the 
hive, by subjecting the bees to the fumes of the fungus, 
called in common language “ puff ball ” and in technical lan- 
guage 44 Lycoperdon giganteum .” Some years since, I think 
about 1851, I investigated this practice, and found that the 
fumes of the Lycoperdon supplied a volatile substance, which 
produced the most perfect insensibility. I performed many 
veterinary operations on various animals while they were under 
the influence of this sleep-producing agent, and I suggested its 
general application for painless operations on the lower animals. 
Afterwards Dr. Thornton Herapath, a young chemist whose 
career, most promising, was cut short by death, followed up my 
enquiries, and on making a more perfect analysis of the fumes, 
discovered that the narcotic agent was carbonic oxide. A third 
illustration of the hypothesis of Snow is afforded, again, in the 
plan of inhaling the fumes of burning opium, until the produc- 
tion of intoxication. In the intoxication after smoking of opium 
all sense of pain is annihilated ; and as the practice is attended 
with very little immediate danger to life, it is most curious that . 
in the East it was not adopted, generally, preparatory to the 
performances of the surgeon. Opium used in this way would 
answer well; for I remember, when I was experimenting with 
the fumes of the burning Lycoperdon , inhaling them, and 
comparing their effects with the effects produced by the smoke 
from a little opium in a pipe, there was very little difference of 
effect ; and I found that, even in the early stage of stupor 
from opium, the skin was insensible to pain. 
The hypothesis that a volatile narcotic was administered by 
inhalation by the Chinese, is yet more clearly supported by the 
VOL. IX. — NO. XXXIV. C 
