APPEARANCES OF GOOD AND BAD MEAT. 475 
using nitrous oxide gas, administered by Dr. Colton, as the anesthetic, and my opinion 
on the value of this agent as compared with chloroform and ether. 
The first operation took place on the 22nd of last July, and was the removal of the 
entire breast and glands of the axilla, for cancer. The patient, a lady in feeble health, 
was suffering from disease of the throat and lungs and general debility. In thirty-five 
seconds from the time she began inhaling the gas, she was in a profound anaesthetic 
sleep. She remained insensible for sixteen consecutive minutes, until the operation was 
completed, and in forty seconds, from the time the bag was removed, awoke to con¬ 
sciousness without nausea, sickness, or vomiting, as is so often the case with the inhala¬ 
tion of chloroform and sulphuric ether. 
The second and third capital operations occurred at the State Emigrants’ Hospital, on 
the 2nd of December, and consisted of two amputations of the leg. The time required 
to produce an anaesthetic sleep in the first patient, a male adult, extremely debilitated 
and worn out by disease, was forty-five seconds; whole duration of the operation and 
influence, two minutes and a quarter. No nausea or unpleasant symptoms. 
The third operation was on a boy of about thirteen years of age. The time consumed 
in the inhalation, operation, and recovery from the anaesthetic sleep, was two minutes, 
the gas working equally as in the other cases, and the patient, after complete anaes¬ 
thesia, awaking entirely free from unpleasant symptoms. 
For minor operations, or for capital operations, such as amputations, which, when 
properly performed, should require but a few minutes, I ha\e no hesi cation in stating 
that the nitrous oxide gas, as an anaesthetic, is far superior to either chloroform or ethei. 
Insensibility is suddenly produced, and the patient recovers consciousness quickly, the 
operation being attended by no nausea 01 sickness, and urthoat the dangerous effects 
often incident to chloroform and ether. 
It is worthy of remark, that the nitrous oxide gas approximates, in its chemical com¬ 
bination, to the composition of the ordinary atmosphere, and we may thus, inferentially, 
account for its more favourable influence. Whether it can be used in operations which 
from their nature require from half an hour to an hour’s time, remains still to be proved 
by actual experiment. . 
* The duration of the anaesthetic influence in the case of the first operation, previously 
alluded to. is the longest on record; and I may here state that this is the first capital 
operation performed under the influence of the gas, since the great discovery of Wells of 
Hartford, twenty-two years ago, that a harmless sleep could be produced by a chemical 
agent, which could annnl for the time being the greatest suffering. It is not at all im¬ 
probable that had Wells lived and had the boldness to follow up his early successful 
experiments, chloroform and ether would never have been thought of as ansesthetics. 
* To G. Q. Colton is due the credit of reviving the use of this important agent, in the 
practice’ of dentistry, after a lull of twenty-two years. 
The value of a safe anaesthetic agent, which can be used without anticipation of 
danger by the patient, is a great boon to suffering humanity ; and I have related thus 
minutely its action in my own cases, in the belief, that if similar favourable results are 
met with by others, the nitrous oxide gas will supersede all other anaesthetics now in 
use .—Canada Medical Journal. 
APPEARANCES OF GOOD AND BAD MEAT. 
Dr. Letheby, in a report on the cattle plague, gives the following characters of good 
and bad meat, which are especially interesting at the present time 
» Q 00 q mea t is neither of a pale pinkish colour nor of a deep purple tint. The former 
is indicative of disease, and the latter is a sign that the animal has died from natural 
causes. Good meat has also a marbled appearance from the ramifications of little veins 
of intercellular fat; and the fat, especially of the internal organs, is hard and suety, and 
is never wet • whereas that of diseased meat is soft and watery, often like jelly or sodden 
parchment. ’Again the touch or feel of healthy meat is firm and elastic, and it hardly 
moistens the fingers : whereas that of diseased meat is soft and wet,—in fact, it is often 
so wet that serum runs from it, and then it is technically called wet. Good meat has 
but little odour, and this is not disagreeable; whereas diseased meat smells faint and 
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