390 
THE ACCIDENTAL INTRODUCTION OF AIR 
The honourable members of the Academy now entered into a 
discussion on the subject of the introduction of air into the veins. 
M. Amusat regarded this fact as a very important one, since 
it may be ranked among the small number of incontestible facts 
which science possesses. It is confirmative of the multiplied ex- 
periments that have been made on this physiological and surgical 
question. Here the existence of the animal had been prolonged, 
because the operator had taken care to close the opening of the 
wound, and the introduction of air had been favoured by the 
weak state into which the animal had been brought by the 
intestinal haemorrhage that had taken place. 
M. Barlhelemy expressed his surprise at not having met, in 
the course of a practice of forty years, with a single fact anala- 
gous to those which had come under the observation of M. Bou- 
ley in so short a space of time. He looked back on the experi- 
ments which he had made on this subject, and the results which 
he had deduced from them, proving that the introduction of air 
into the veins is possible, but that it requires an assemblage of 
special conditions that rarely presented themselves. In the 
case before them the animal had been attacked by intestinal 
apoplexy; but we know that this malady, too common, ran its 
course with wonderful rapidity, and produced death in from ten 
to twelve hours. In every case that had come under his notice 
it was not possible to introduce sufficient air to destroy the ani- 
mal in the space of two minutes. 
M. Renault had not, in the space of fifteen years, witnessed 
more than one case similar to those recorded by M. Bouley. In 
the experiments which he had made in concert with M. Lassaigne, 
he had attempted to introduce air into the veins ; and two pints 
of air introduced by means of a bladder produced very different 
effects on different horses, yet in none of them were followed 
by death ; but three pints of air introduced in the same way, 
in almost every case destroyed the horse. 
M. Ferrus thought that the danger of bleeding from the ju- 
gular was very much exaggerated. For his own part, in his 
practice in the hospital of the Bic£tre, he had effected a great 
number of bleedings from the jugular in the human subject, and 
no accident had occurred. He had, however, seen two horses 
that died from the opening of this vessel. He sometimes thought 
that the position in which the horse was placed after the opera- 
tion, his being tied so short and his head elevated, would some- 
times contribute to produce this fatal termination. 
M. Rochoux did not think that, in the case cited by M. Bou- 
ley, it was necessary to recur to the introduction of air into the 
