258 
G. ARCHIE STOCKWELL. 
wherein the issues of life and death are narrowed down—not 
to days and hours, but to a few minutes. Add to this fact 
that this condition rests with the physician or surgeon 
whether to produce it or not, and it is difficult to understand 
how its importance can be overestimated. 
The condition known as anaesthesia must therefore be ad¬ 
mitted to be in itself a dangerous one, and dangerous in pro¬ 
portion to the degree to which it is carried. And it must 
also be admitted that when the degree of full anaesthesia is 
reached, the signs which mark the approach of the profound 
and fatal stages are very much marked by the condition itself, 
so that the attempt to maintain the safer stage may produce 
those which are less safe without recognition of the fatal pro¬ 
gress until one of two or three things suddenly occurs, with 
more or less sudden death. Then if the condition of anaes¬ 
thesia be a dangerous one, all anaesthetics must be dan¬ 
gerous. 
The waste of ether when employed for anaesthetic pur¬ 
poses has already been attended to. This is generally very 
great, and likewise unnecessary ; there is no reason why more 
of this drug should be required than of chloroform, if prop¬ 
erly administered. It is more than probable, also, that the 
nausea and vomiting that so frequently supervenes upon its 
use, or following anaesthesia, is due to super-saturation of the 
patient with the vapor—at least such is the experience of the 
writer. With increased knowledge in the employment of 
anaesthetics, the volume of ether required to produce a definite 
result, is less than one-fourth that demanded fifteen years 
gone, and usually a half ounce to an ounce suffices for the in¬ 
duction of anaesthesia, the quantity demanded to maintain 
narcosis being proportionate to the length of time required 
for the operation. At a recent operation for the removal of 
a lupus of the glans penis, in a man of 25, the time required, 
dating from the moment the patient ascended the table until 
he was snugly ensconced in bed, was fifty-five minutes, and 
the amount of ether consumed was but seventeen fluid 
drachms ; with long experience with both ether and chloro¬ 
form, 1 am sure I could not have done better with an equal 
volume of the latter. Here 1 may be permitted to remark, 
that Dr. Squibb’s apparatus for the administration of ether, 
though in little favor with those who believe in the drenching 
