NOTE ON CHLORAL. 
1 99 
fresh blood, chloroform is liberated: experiment proved such to be the fact, 
the odour of chloroform being very distinct and chloroform itself distilling 
over when the mixture was heated in a retort. 
The narcotic power of the hydrate was tried upon rabbits, pigeons and 
irogs, the standard solution before-named being administered by the mouth 
or by hypodermic injection, either of which methods appeared effective. The 
general results were in the main confirmatory of those mentioned by Liebreich. 
1 he full dose of grains administered to a pigeon occasioned drowsiness in 
a few minutes, and deep sleep with entire insensibility in twenty minutes. 
Jtfefore sleep was produced there was in every case vomiting, whether the 
dose was large or small. As sleep and insensibility came on, there was always 
a fall m the temperature of the body, and the respirations declined in num¬ 
ber per minute. From the full dose that could be borne by a pigeon the 
sleep which followed lasted from 3-| to 4 hours, and 6 hours at least were 
required for perfect recovery. During the stages of narcotism, the evolution 
of chloroform by the breath was distinctly manifest. In an excessive dose, 
hydrate of chloral causes death.—Dr. Eichardson’s observations are sum¬ 
marized thus: 
Hydrate of chloral, administered by the mouth or by hypodermic injection 
produces, as Liebreich states, prolonged sleep. 
The sleep it induces, as Liebreich also shows, is not preceded by the stao-e 
of excitement so well known when chloroform is administered by inhalation! 
. -^ke narcotic condition is due to the chloroform liberated from the hydrate 
in the organism, and all the narcotic effects are identical with those caused 
by chloroform. 
In birds the hydrate produces vomiting in the same manner, and to as full 
a degree, as does chloroform itself. 
The sleep produced by hydrate of chloral is prolonged, and during the 
sleep there is a period of perfect anaesthesia; but this stage is comparatively 
of short duration. J 
The action of the hydrate is (as Liebreich assumes) first on the volitional 
centres of the cerebrum ; next, on the cord; and, lastly, on the heart. 
As to the practical application of hydrate of chloral'Dr. E. remarked that 
whether it would replace opium and the other narcotics, is a point on which 
he was not prepared to speak. It is not probable it will supersede the volatile 
anaesthetics for the purpose of removing pain during the performance of 
surgical operations, but it might be employed to obtain and keep up sleep in 
cases of painful disease. This research had, however, led to the fact that 
chloroform, when injected subcutaneously in an efficient dose, leads to as 
perfect and as prolonged a narcotism as the hydrate, with an absence of 
other symptoms caused by the hydrate, which are unfavourable to its action. 
I his was a new truth in regard to chloroform, and might place it favourably 
by the side of the hydrate for hypodermic use. Lastly, as the hydrate acts 
by causing a decomposition of the blood,— i. e., by undergoing decomposition 
itself and seizing the natural alkali of the blood, it adds to the blood formiate 
of sodium. How far this is useful or injurious remains to be discovered. 
But while putting these views as to practical application at once and fairly 
forward, Dr. Eichardson said it was due to Liebreich to add that his (Lieb- 
reich’s) theory and his experiments have done fine service in a physiological 
point of view. They have shown in one decisive instance that a given chemi¬ 
cal substance is decomposed in the living body by virtue of pure chemical 
change, and that the symptoms produced are caused by one of the products 
of that decomposition. The knowledge thus definitively obtained admits of * 
being applied over and over again in the course of therapeutical inquiry. 
