896 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[May 6,1371. 
sure that I could not have made that mistake, I said, 
“ Why, I must have given you Catherine Kearney’s 
medicine, which was to he taken in cod-livcr oil.” 
Thinking that was the cause of it burning, I at once 
poured out some oil arid gave it to Hughes. It seemed 
to make her sick. The other girl, Mary Ann Monaghan, 
was still waiting in the passage, and I also gave her 
some oil. She at fii-st refused to take it, but I told her 
/ i 
she had better. She drank it, and then seemed very ill.; 
I then went for the doctor. 
The coroner, in summing up, explained the law on 
the subject. Where a person, while doing a lawful act 
in a lawful way, unfortunately killed another person, 
the act was in law an excusable homicide. It was for j 
the jury to judge whether this was the case in the present 
instance. 
The jury, after consulting for a short time, returned a 
verdict “ That the deceased girls died from misadven¬ 
ture.” They added a recommendation that the board of 
guardians should take into consideration the use of car¬ 
bolic acid and other poisonous disinfectants in the work- . 
house, and by what means and by what persons these 
disinfectants be used in future. 
The nurse Hughes is progressing favourably towards 
recovery.— The Manchester Courier. 
Anaesthetics. By Edwakd R. Squibb, M.D. New j 
York. 1871. 
Dr. Squibb, of Brooklyn, has recently published a pam-: 
phlet on the subject of anaesthetics. The work is, in 
fact, a paper read before the Medical Society of the State 
of New York, and was published in advance of the 
volume of “ Transactions of the Society,” in the Mew 
York Journal of Medicine for April, 1871. 
We are in England peculiarly well supplied with in- ! 
formation on the subject of anaesthesia. We have had 
many industrious and able investigators on the’ subject, 
and are accustomed to find in it a rich and varied litera¬ 
ture. To us, consequently, Dr. Squibb’s paper is some¬ 
what barren; he speaks only of three anaesthetic sub-' 
stances, viz. nitrous oxide, ether and chloroform, and 
offers no suggestion in respect to research after other and 
better substances for general anaesthesia. 
The paper evidently is written to support one position, j 
viz. that ethylic ether of specific gravity 0-728, yields! 
the best and safest narcotic vapour; to which is added 
an endeavour to prove that the same vapour may be ; 
made the most applicable agent for general administra¬ 
tion. On the question of the safety of ethylic ether, we 
agree with Dr. Squibb; on the question of its efficiency 
as a general anaesthetic, when it is efficiently adminis- j 
tered, we agree with Dr. Squibb; but on the final ques-! 
tion of the facility of its administration, we cannot for a j 
moment agree with him, neither do we think his book in | 
the slightest measure removes the well-known and widely ! 
felt objections to ether, on the ground of its indifferent 
applicability. Dr. Snow hit the mark admirably wdien he 
was once called to task, by some critic, for inconsistency.! 
He had expressed his opinion freely, that ether was safer 
than chloroform. “ Then,” inquired the critic, “ why do ! 
you not act consistently, and give ether to your many : 
patients, instead of chloroform ?”—“ I use chloroform 
now instead of ether,” replied Snow, “ for the same rea- j 
son that you use lucifer matches instead of the tinder-, 
boxan occasional risk never stands in the way of ready i 
applicability. I his is strictly true, and it would always 
hold good as between ether and chloroform, if we were | 
absolutely bound to these two fluids, i. e. the one would 
give us the convenience, the other the safety, and the 
convenience would prevail; happily, we are not so 
bound. 
AYc have said that Dr. Squibb’s advocacy of the appli¬ 
cability of ether is not borne out by his description of 
the fact; we think rather that his advocacy lies the 
other way. For instance, after describing an apparatus 
of his own construction for the administration of ether, 
and which we can but admit is a sensible and ingenious 
device, he proceeds to give 113 the details of the practice 
of it. In every case, after the patient is ready, the ap¬ 
paratus, which consists of a sort of double-cone muslin 
bag, is wetted completely through with water, and after¬ 
wards squeezed until it no longer drips. A tin tube 
is then introduced into the narrow part of the bag, the 
measured quantity of ether is poured out into a tumbler, 
a roll of flannel and blotting-board is immersed into the 
other to absorb it, and this roll is finally put into the tin 
tube. Now the bag is charged and ready; the open end 
is applied to the face of the patient, so as to cover the 
mouth and nose, and the inhalation commences. The 
quantity of ether required for the first charge is lA to 2 
fluid ounces for an adult man, and the administrator is 
recommended to commence his operations about ten 
minutes before the surgeon begins his part. "When the 
stage of restless excitement occurs, the bag is to be kept 
to the mouth with gentle force; if vomiting occur, the 
bag must be momentarily removed. And when the full 
stage of insensibility is attained, the bag is for a time 
removed, so as to avoid the fourth or snoring stage of 
sleep. 
In the close of the account certain precautions are 
offered for preventing “ that supersaturation of the body 
with ether, which tends to the more certain occurrence 
of prolonged nausea and vomiting, which so often induce 
septicaemia, and thus cause death.” The author adds 
that he has sustained anaesthesia with ether for sixty-five 
minutes, the quantity of ether consumed being less than 
5 fluid ounces. 
We have given these particulars fairly and fully, be¬ 
cause they support what we have indicated, that they 
are against the reintroduction of etheT into practice. 
When we can narcotize with a fluid which requires fluid 
drachms only instead of fluid ounces, which can be car¬ 
ried in the waistcoat pocket, which can anaesthetize in 
from three to four minutes, which can keep up the insen¬ 
sibility for any required time, and which does not nau¬ 
seate more than ether, we may be sure that fatal accidents 
from it in the proportions in which such accidents 
happen, will not cause it to be displaced by so incon¬ 
venient an agent as ether. No, the secret of perfecting 
anaesthesia lies in procuring a fluid as good as chloro¬ 
form, as convenient as chloroform, and as safe as ether. 
Already many advances have been made in this direction 
of research; the action of various narcotic agents has 
been the subject of much laborious investigation; the 
reasons of the faults of ether and chloroform have been 
conspicuously demonstrated, and the actual requirements 
for a safe and ready anaesthetic have been formulated. 
This is the true line of progress, from which it is now 
as impossible as it were unwise to recede. The bad 
effects of anaesthetics, the vomiting, the convulsion, the 
syncope, the asphyxia, the occasional death, are, accord¬ 
ing to one of our most diligent authorities, all accidental 
and unnecessary attendants on the process of production 
of insensibility to pain : they depend, that is to say, 
simply on qualities in the agents as yet employed dis¬ 
tinct from the pure anaesthetic qualities of the agents. 
We prefer, therefore, rather to look forward to the new 
triumphs of science than, with Dr. Squibb, to go back¬ 
wards to the old. 
The following journals have been received:—Tbe ‘British 
Medical Journal,’ April 20; the‘Medical Times and Gazette,’ 
April 29; the ‘ Lancet,’ April 29; the ‘ Medical Press and 
Circular,’ May 3; ‘ Nature ,’ } April 27 ; the ‘Chemical News,’ 
April 28; ‘Journal of the Society of Arts,’April 20; ‘Gar¬ 
deners’ Chronicle,’ April 29 ; the ‘ Crrocer,’ April 29; ‘ Produce 
Markets Review,’ April 29 ; the ‘ English Mechanic,’ April 28; 
the ‘ Doctor ’ for April; the ‘American Chemist ’ for Si arch ; 
the ‘ Florist and Pomologist’ for April. 
