ANAESTHETIC PROPERTIES OF BICHLORIDE OF CARBON. 417 
as high as 1*56, whilst chloroform is 1-49. It boils at 170° Fahrenheit, the boiling-point 
of chloroform being 141°. The density of its vapour is 5-33, that of chloroform being 
4*2. 
Besides trying the anaesthetic effects of bichloride of carbon upon myself and others, 
I have used it in one or two cases of midwifery and surgery. Its primary effects are very 
analogous to those of chloroform, but it takes a longer time to produce the same degree 
of anaesthesia, and generally a longer time to recover from it. Some experiments with 
it upon mice and rabbits have shown this—two corresponding animals in these experi¬ 
ments being simultaneously exposed, under exactly similar circumstances, to the same 
doses of chloroform and chlorocarbon. But the depressing influence of chlorocarbon 
upon the heart is greater than that of chloroform ; and, consequently, I believe it to be 
far more dangerous to employ as a general anaesthetic agent. In a case of midwifery in 
which it was exhibited by my friend and assistant, Dr. Black, and myself, for above an 
hour, with the usual anaesthetic effects, the pulse latterly became extremely feeble and 
weak. In another case in which it was exhibited by Dr. Black, the patient, who had 
taken chloroform several times before, was unaw T are that the new anaesthetic was dif¬ 
ferent from the old ; her pulse continued steady and firm, although she is the subject of 
valvular disease of the heart. The surgical operations in which I have used chlorocarbon 
have been, the closure of a vesico-vaginal fistula, the division of the cervix uteri, the 
enlargement of the orifice of the vagina, and the application of potassa fusa to a large 
flat nsevus upon the chest of a young infant. In all of these cases it answered quite 
well as an ansesthetic. The child did not waken up for more than an hour and a half 
after the employment of the caustic, which w r as used so as to produce a large slough. 
Its pulse was rapid and weak during the greatest degree of anaesthetic sleep. One of the 
mice exposed to its influence, and which was removed from the tumbler where the ex¬ 
periment upon it was made as soon as the animal fell over, breathed imperfectly for some 
time after being laid on the table, and then died. 
Chlorocarbon, when applied externally to the skin, acts much less as a stimulant and 
irritant than chloroform, and will hence, I believe, in all likelihood be found of use as a 
local anaesthetic in the composition of sedative liniments. 
In two cases of severe hysteralgia I have injected air loaded with the vapours of chloro¬ 
carbon into the vagina. The simplest apparatus for this purpose consists of a common 
enema syringe, with the nozzle introduced into the vagina, and the other extremity of 
the apparatus placed an inch or more down into the interior of a four-ounce phial, con¬ 
taining a small quantity—as an ounce or so—of the fluid whose vapour it is wished to 
inject through the syringe. Both patients were at once temporarily relie\ed from the 
pain. The first patient told me her relief at the first application of the anaesthetic 
vapour was so long that she slept during the following night far more soundly than she 
had done for weeks previously. . . 
The injection of the vapour of chlorocarbon into the rectum does not prove so nri- 
tating as the vapour of chloroform. In one case it removed speedily pains in the abdo¬ 
men and back. , 
Chloroform vapour applied by sprinkling a few drops on the hand, and held near the 
eye, is one of the very best and most sedative collyria in some forms of conjunctivitis, 
ulcerations of the cornea, with photophobia, etc. I have not yet tried the vapour of 
chlorocarbon, but perhaps it may answer still better, as less irritant, and almost as 
strongly sedative. 
I have found ten or twenty drops injected subcutaneously by Dr. Woods syringe re¬ 
peatedly relieve local pains of the walls of the chest, abdomen, etc., without being o - 
lowed by the distressing nausea so frequently the result of the hypodermic injection ot 
preparations of opium and morphia. 
Internally I have only hitherto tried it in small doses in gastrodyma, where it has the 
same effect as swallowing a capsule of chloroform. 
The specimen of chlorocarbon which I have used was made by Mr. Ransford, who sent 
it down to Messrs. Duncan, Flockhart, and Co., of Edinburgh, under the idea that, by a 
chemical substitution, it might be converted into chloroform, and make a cheap medium 
for the manufacture of the latter drug. And perhaps I may be permitted here to remark 
that the quantity of chloroform used is now becoming very great, and possibly might be 
rendered greater if it could be produced at a still cheaper rate. We have two or three 
manufactories for chloroform in this city. The chief of these manufactories for it—that 
