Facts and Observations, 
A NEW ANAESTHETIC. ' ’ 
Under the name of “ kerosolene 99 a new anaesthetic has 
lately been undergoing investigation in America. The sup¬ 
posed discovery of its properties was made by its affecting a 
workman, who was employed to clean out a cistern of some 
works, in which the substance was the product of the opera¬ 
tions carried on. The agent was thereon introduced to the 
Boston Medical Society; and Dr. Bigelow, in a letter to the 
Boston Medical Journal , reports his experience of it. He 
describes it as a tasteless fluid, volatile and inflammable, of a 
faint chloroform-odour, changing to that of coal-tar, and then 
disappearing altogether. Dr. Bigelow experimented on him¬ 
self. The kerosolene, he says, was pleasant to inhale, and left 
no disagreeable after symptoms. In three patients, however, 
to whom he administered it, a feeble and intermitting pulse 
was produced, with symptoms of asphyxia, and more muscular 
rigidity than usual in favorable anaesthesia. The properties 
of the fluid are, we believe, undergoing further examination ; 
and we shall probably hear in due time whether it is capable 
of taking the place of chloroform or ether. 
ON DIGITALINE. 
M. Homolle, whose name, with that of M. Quevenne, is 
intimately connected with digitaline, has presented a paper to 
the Medical Society of the Paris Hospitals, wherein he gives 
an account of very interesting experiments on the value of 
the alkaloid just named. He wished to ascertain whether 
digitalis contained another principle besides digitaline which 
might possess the same properties. To arrive at a satisfactory 
solution, the author first prepared, with alcohol at 18°, an 
extract which differed from simple digitalis by the mere 
absence of chlorophyll. This extract (forty-five grains of 
which answer to about three drachms of powdered digitalis) 
was afterwards treated by alcohol at 40°, then by ether, and 
lastly by chloroform. Thus products were obtained classed 
respectively under Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4. No. 1 is an extractive 
mass deprived of the greater portion of the bitter principle; 
