RELATIONS AND VALUES OF THE ANAESTHETICS. 
249 
is none the less true, and more common by far than may be 
generally imagined. With this digression, intended solely to 
inculcate the broad principle, that therapeusis is not to be 
measured or limited by arbitrary zoological lines drawn by 
the self-sufficient vertebrate, and that medicine, whatever its 
special class or rank, is truly scientific only in proportion to 
its best and highest applications. I will turn to the consider¬ 
ation of: 
ETHER. 
Although this agent has a long range in applicability in 
r medicine and pharmacy, and is daily increasing in value as a 
solvent, its most important place is as an anaesthetic. As an 
anaesthetic, moreover, it is scientifically the only one adapted 
to general use, and really appropriate to all uses, and—with 
the possible exception of nitrous oxide—the only safe anaes¬ 
thetic for either general or special purposes : I use the term 
“ safe,” however, in a relative sense, for the condition known 
as anaesthetic is in itself a dangerous one, and dangerous in 
proportion to the degree to which it is carried. To impress 
this fact, it is only necessary to remember that the number of 
deaths fairly charged against all anaesthetics is quite numerous, 
and the number constantly increasing against all. 
When ether is mentioned, in connection with anaesthesia, 
it is pure oxide of ethyl (ether fortior) that is understood, and 
not the compound sanctioned by pharmacopoeias, and gen¬ 
erally sold in shops “ as sulphuric,” which contains usually 
about 25 per cent, of alcohol. There is little difficulty in 
making the selection, however, as in the United States Dr. 
Edward R. Squibb, of Brooklyn, practically enjoys a monop¬ 
oly of the product, which is sold Only in sealed tins that bear 
his label. 
The especial advantage of ether as an anaesthetic agent is, 
that it will increase instead of diminish arterial pressure, or, 
in other words, that it is a cardiac stimulant instead of a de¬ 
pressant like chloroform, the pulsation in lethal cases contin¬ 
uing for a greater or less period after arrest of respiration. 
Its physiological sequences, when inhaled or injected into the 
rectum, colon, and peritoneal cavity, are as follows: 
