ACTION OF ANAESTHETICS. 
23 
produce energetic effects. 12. The large intestine will 
rarely tolerate a larger dose than 30 grains of the sulphate. 
13. These conclusions, more or less, exactly apply to the 
various substances administered by clysters. 14. The apy- 
retic is notably more favorable to the absorption of me- 
dicinal substances than the pyretic condition. 15. The 
typhoid condition favours such absorption less than other 
states of phlegmasia. Nevertheless it is more energetic 
than hitherto supposed, being only about a tenth inferior to 
the absorption taking place in the pyretic condition. 16. In 
diabetes, the absorption of medicinal substances appears to 
be very feeble in the intestine. 17. In certain diseases, the 
tolerance or intolerance of medicinal substances may depend 
upon a special susceptibility rather than upon variations in 
absorption. Thus, in hysteria, the tolerance of opium no- 
wise depends upon an absence of absorption, but results 
from a special susceptibility. 18. The rapidity with which 
medicinal substances, such as the salts of quinine, are elimi- 
nated, is in a direct ratio with the quantity of urine passed. 
This rapidity is the exact measure of the time which the 
economy takes to rid itself of the greater part of fixed sub- 
stances taken medicinally. 19* The absorption of medicinal 
substances, analogous to the salts of quinine, is far more 
rapid in the young. 20. It is less active in females than in 
males, in the proportion of a sixth to an eighth. 21. Ab- 
stracting from a medicinal effect the portion due to the 
quantity of the substance absorbed, the remainder gives the 
measure of the susceptibility of being influenced by the 
medicinal substance . — Bulletin de V Acad, and tom. xxii, 
pp. 237, 1273; and Medical Times and Gazette . 
ON THE ACTION OE ANAESTHETICS. 
Dr. Detmold remarked that members would recollect 
that, about the year 1847, he called the attention of the 
Academy to certain propositions, which he then made, 
proving quite conclusively that carbonic acid gas is the 
efficient agent in causing anaesthesia. The carbonic acid 
may be given as such, or one of its chemical ingredients 
may be so administered, that, finding in the blood the other 
constituents of this compound, carbonic acid gas is gene- 
rated, and anaesthesia, to a certain extent, is the result. 
Thus we may administer oxygen in large quantities, in the 
form of nitrous oxide (protoxide of nitrogen, or laughing 
