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ON THE INTKODUCTION OF AIK 
ON THE EFFECTS OF THE INTRODUCTION OF AIR 
INTO THE VEINS OF LIVING ANIMALS. 
The Royal Academy of Medicine at Paris has been lately 
employed in the discussion of this most important pathological 
and physiological subject. A summary of the debate, and the 
conclusions at which the Society arrived, may not be uninterest¬ 
ing to our readers. We condense it from that valuable periodi¬ 
cal Recueil de Medecine Veterinaire, 
The fatal effects of the introduction of air into the veins has long 
been known among veterinary surgeons. The forcing of atmo¬ 
spheric air into the vessels that carry black blood, for the purpose 
of destroying the animal, is of considerable standing. It is spoken 
of by Tissot in 1768, and by Morgagni in 1787. Chabert, in his 
Treatise on Glanders, published in 1787, speaks also of the injec¬ 
tion of air into the jugulars, and recommends it as the surest and 
most expeditious way of destroying an animal. He prefers it to 
all other methods of accomplishing this object, because it effects 
no other change in the viscera than distention of the parietes of 
the heart, and consequently enables us better to appreciate the 
lesions w'hich were actually produced by the disease. 
The phenomenon of the accidental introduction of air into a 
vein wounded in a surgical operation is a new fact in veterinary 
medicine. It was recorded for the first ti me by Professor Verrier, 
in the Compte-rendu of the Veterinary School of Alfort in 1806, 
and it occurred during the bleeding of a horse from the jugular. 
The second occurrence of the same nature was in the practice 
of Mr. Bouley, jun. in 1819, and is published in the first volume 
oi' Magendie^s Physiological Journal. We insert his account of 
’ it, as given at a late sitting of “The Academy of Medicine.” 
“ I was desired in 1819 to examine the horse of a person in the 
Isle of St. Louis, which was beginning to be attacked with pneu¬ 
monia. Judging it necessary to bleed him, I opened the left 
jugular vein in the usual way. There was nothing in the opera¬ 
tion which could afford cause of alarm. The opening was large, 
and in perfect relation with that of the vein ; the blood flowed 
readily in one regular stream, and without any jerk in the current 
(sans saccades). In a w'ord, I repeat it, there was no cause of 
alarm. 
“ The vessel into which the blood flowed not beino^^ larg^e enousfh 
to hold the full quantity which 1 intended to abstract, I sent it 
away by my assistant, in order that it might be emptied, and 
withdrew my pressure on the portion of the vein below the inci- 
