146 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[August 20, 1870 1 . 
mens of the medicine, and Liehreich’s report having 
"been received in England, Dr. Richardson examined its 
properties, confirming Liehreich’s statements, and con¬ 
siderably enlarging our knowledge of the medicinal 
action of the substance.* He also inclined towards 
Liebreich’s theory as to its mode of action. Personne 
also supports this theory, and has advanced evidence in 
its favour. Dr. D. B. Russell has likewise found that 
typhus patients are very sensitive to the action of chloral 
hydrate; and, in explanation of this fact, he points to 
the opinion, that the alkalinity of the fluids is increased 
in typhus. Of course, the more alkaline the blood, the 
more rapidly the decomposition of the hydrate and the 
production of chloroform might be expected to take 
place. 
But, whatever the value of Liebreich’s theory may be, 
the chief thing is to learn what are the effects of chloral 
hydrate—what is its real value as a medicine ? One of 
the earliest to try it in England was Mr. Spencer Wells, t 
Since then it has been employed so extensively, that it 
may be useful to gather up somewhat the knowledge 
acquired as to its value. There does seem not a little 
danger of its being erected into a kind of panacea for all 
the ills that flesh is heir to, of its true worth and fame 
suffering from too indiscriminate use. Its value is pro¬ 
bably too great and too real for actual eclipse by its 
abuse; but the repute of this medicine may be danger¬ 
ously compromised. 
Hydrate of chloral ought, when used as a medicine, to 
be perfectly pure. When impure it has, like impure 
chloroform, highly irritating properties, and in the for¬ 
mation of chloral other chlorinated compounds may be 
produced. These must be carefully removed. In the 
great demand that has arisen for chloral hydrate, and 
the desire to cheapen its production, there is danger of 
impure specimens being supplied. 
Liebreich stated that, in sufficient doses, the hydrate 
produces, after a short interval, deep sleep, and when 
carried far enough, complete anaesthesia ; that its action 
is not accompanied with excitement, and that it leaves 
no bad after-effects. Dr. Richardson concluded from his 
experiments that “ deep and prolonged narcotism can be 
safely produced by the hydrate; that, during a portion 
of the period of narcotism, there may be complete anaes¬ 
thesia with absence of reflex actions; a condition in 
which every operation fails to call forth consciousness, 
and that, during the narcotism, there are intervals of 
apparent exalted sensibility.” But he observes the in¬ 
sensibility and the sleep this hydrate produces do not 
represent or rival the action of the volatile anaesthetics 
we use for abolition of pain during surgical operations. 
Moreover Demarquay, of Paris, in his experiments on 
rabbits, failed to observe any anaesthetic state; but he 
found that the animals, though thrown into most perfect 
sleep, were in a state of highly-exalted hyperesthesia. 
On the whole it appears experience has shown that 
the hydrate is not truly anaesthetic; that very large 
doses will produce heavy and prolonged sleep, but not 
true anaesthesia,—certainly that anaesthesia cannot 
safely be induced by it. There is but very slight record 
of direct evidence on this point. Professor Nussbaum 
tried it as an anaesthetic in the Munich Hospital; out 
of twenty cases it caused anaesthesia in only one, that of 
a woman of weak constitution. All the other subjects 
experimented on experienced only drunkenness, and 
they said the pain caused by operations was less severe 
than under the influence of chloroform, sometimes even 
being scarcely felt, but only the one experienced no 
pain at all .X This report is so imperfect as to be all but 
useless ; and it may be taken for certain that to produce 
* Med. Times and Gazette, Sept. 4, Oct. 30, and Nov. 6, 
1869. 
f See Med. Times and Gazette, vol. ii. 1869, pp. 346 and 408. 
X ‘ American Journal of the Medical Sciences,’ April, 1870, 
from ‘ Mouvement Medicale,’ Feb. 1870. 
anaesthesia the hydrate must be given in toxic doses. 
M. Noira relates,* as a warning, a case of amputation 
under the influence of chloral hydrate. The patient, a 
man of sixty-four, took five grains of the hydrate; in 
two hours amputation of the leg was performed without 
his making a movement or uttering a cry. But the 
pulse then became filiform and uncountable, while a 
state of alarming coma lasted for eleven hours. Then 
violent delirium camo on, with vomiting and pain in the 
stomach, lasting for eight hours, and leaving the pa¬ 
tient in the most extreme prostration, the bad effects of 
which did not pass off for many hours longer. 
From smygmographic observations made by M. 
Bouchat, Drs. Anstie and Burton Sanderson,f it appears 
that chloral hydrate contracts the arterioles. Dr. Rus¬ 
sell Reynolds has also recorded a case in which a dose of 
50 grains produced most alarming toxic effects in a lady 
of middle age. “ The superficial pulses were almost im¬ 
perceptible, and, when they could be detected, were ex¬ 
cessively rapid, weak, irregular, and intermittent. The 
heart was regular in its beat, although feeble, and in¬ 
tensely rapid in its pulsations.” Hence it would seem 
that the drug produces arterial anaemia of the brain- 
when given in hypnotic doses, and it can hardly be de¬ 
sirable to push that effect by very large doses. M. 
Bouchat considers it to be contraindicated in cases of or¬ 
ganic cerebral and cardiac mischief; certainly its effects 
may be feared in cases of fatty or otherwise weak heart. 
But, as a hypnotic, there is no doubt Liebreich has 
placed in our hands a most valuable and admirable me¬ 
dicine. As a sleep-compeller it is, in a very large num¬ 
ber of cases, unrivalled; for while, in power, opium 
alone can be compared with it, there is this superiority 
to opium, that its use entails no unpleasant after-symp¬ 
toms,—no headache, no nausea, no anorexia, no constipa¬ 
tion,—while the sleep it produces is gentle, calm, and con¬ 
tinued. At least this is the general rule, though there 
have been cases where chloral hydrate has excited un¬ 
pleasant effects, such as nausea and painful dreams. 
Cases of this kind will occur now and then, so long as 
human beings differ so greatly in temperament, consti¬ 
tution and sensibility to the action of medicine. 
CULTIVATION OF CINCHONA IN MEXICO. 
Mr. Hugo Finck, Vice-Consul of the North German 
Confederation at Cordova, Mexico, writes as follows, 
under date 10 July, 1870, to Mr. Hanbury, who has fa¬ 
voured us with the extract:— 
* * You remember sending me some seeds of 
Cinchona officinalis: I sowed them and a good many 
germinated, but the plants were all lost save one. 
That plant is now 7 feet high and looking very healthy.. 
Afterwards I got from Mr. Nieto about a hundred 
small plants of C. Calisaya, C. succirubra, and C. Con - 
daminea , which are all growing amazingly welL 
Some are already 12 feet high, with leaves from 10 
to 15 inches long and wide in proportion. One 
three-year-old plant flowered at the house of Mr. 
Nieto, but I think this was premature and cause 4 
by some impediment in the ground, as a large stone 
or some other obstruction with which the roots came 
in contact. 
In 1866, the late Emperor Maximilian obtained 
some cinchona seeds from England which he distri¬ 
buted in this country. Mr. Nieto got the largest 
share of those seeds, and as he took great pains 
with them he raised thousands of plants, which he 
distributed to a number of persons. Of these plants 
the greater part were lost through injudicious ma¬ 
nagement, so that actually only about 300 are alive, 
of which number I possess one-third. 
* ‘ Gazette des Hopitaux,’ Dec. 1869. 
f ‘ Practitioner,’ March, 1870. 
