INJURIOUS EFFECTS OF INHALATION OF ETHER. 403 
the exhibition of a poison . So that a patient about to undergo 
operation is to inhale a poison, be subjected to its deleterious 
effects, and then to swallow an antidote ; as though the operation 
were not of itself sufficient, without all this extra complication of 
poison and antidotes, suspended animation, or actual death, proxi- 
mate or remote. 
But what are the facts ] Etherized blood cannot be reddened 
by oxygen gas, simply because its black red colour is not depend- 
ent alone on a chemical change in the haematin. The ether has 
also dissolved the blood corpuscles, and thus permitted the escape 
of the contained haematoglobulin ; and these it cannot restore. Had 
the blood been merely rendered artificially venous by the absorp- 
tion of its oxygen, or by cutting off its ordinary supply, its arterial 
colour would be restored by agitating it with oxygen. In the 
following experiment these facts are pretty clearly established : — 
In each of two vessels I caught eight and a half ounces, by 
weight, of arterial blood ; both vessels were instantly plunged in 
water at a temperature of 98° Fahrenheit : the blood in one vessel 
was exposed for three minutes to the influence of the vapour of 
ether. The blood became of an intensely black red colour, whilst 
coagulation was to a very considerable extent interrupted. Sub- 
sequently oxygen gas was diffused through the etherized blood, 
but no restoration of colour could be produced. Placed in the field 
of a powerful microscope, numerous flocculi, the remains of the 
capsules of the corpuscles, were observed floating in the fluid por- 
tion of the blood, which was rich with these remains. At the 
expiration of seventy-two hours, the blood in both vessels was 
weighed : that which had been subjected to the vapour of ether 
yielded five and a half ounces of black red fluid , and three ounces 
of a stringy clot , conclusive evidence of the small amount of 
fibrin. The fluid portion of the blood (serum) in the other vessel, 
in which neither flocculi nor corpuscles could be detected under 
the microscope, weighed half an ounce, the clot eight ounces. 
This indisposition of the blood to coagulate after the inhalation 
of ether offers another very serious consideration. Fatal heemor- 
rhages must occur, and do occur ; and as the whole circulating 
fluid is deteriorated by the ether, is it matter of surprise that the 
lips of wounds evert, that the discharge is unhealthy, that stumps 
become flabby or gangrenous, and that patients sink and die I 
Etherization, it is to be feared, exerts also a baneful influence 
directly upon the respiratory organs. A medical friend in Dublin 
informed me recently, that, of thirty fatal cases following operations 
in which ether had been employed in the various hospitals of that 
city, eight were found to be the subjects of recent tubercles of the 
lungs, the undoubted product, it was believed, of inhalation. 
