A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ANAESTHETICS. 
225 
ethyl bromide, nitrous oxide, and the so-called “triple” or 
“A. C. E.” mixture (alcohol i ; chloroform 2 ; ether 3 parts), 
have each staunch adherents. In the medical and scientific 
press also, periodically appear essays and discussions having 
for their aim the establishment of the superiority of one or 
another of these agents, but as such for the most part are 
manifestly of partisan character, they contribute little to the 
sum total of our knowledge. 
It is obvious that too great care cannot be exercised 
in the choice of an anaesthetic, not alone from the physi¬ 
ological relations of the agent, but also as regards its puri¬ 
ty and strength. Much of the opprobrium that has, from 
time to time, been heaped upon each and all, had its origin in 
the employment of crude, weak and impure products. 
It may further be said that neither clinical experience or 
experimental research has been able positively to demonstrate 
the exact conditions in either man or animals to which any 
one anaesthetic is specially applicable, or even under which 
it can be most advantageously employed, for the information 
extant is almost wholly made up of negations. Each individ¬ 
ual patient requires individual study, since what may be 
“ meat ” to one, may prove “ poison ” to another, and the final 
selection, if judiciously made, will be based solely upon the 
physiology and pathology of the disease, the physiological 
manifestations prone to follow the use of the anaesthetic, and 
racial and individual idiosyncracies. Finally, the anaesthetic 
chosen, despite the evidences that may be adduced by its 
friends in favor of inoccuousness, should be employed with 
the greatest circumspection and care, since the very condi¬ 
tions that render anaesthesia possible are always grave sources 
of danger—a danger that may be increased or diminished by 
obscure morbid conditions. When we consider the vast num¬ 
bers of men and animals that yearly undergo anaesthesia, and 
the ignorance and carelessness that so generally attends the 
administration of an anaesthetic, it must be confessed the dan¬ 
gers are in the main more apparent than real, or else the small 
ratio of fatalities is the result of “good luck” rather than ex¬ 
pert management; it only proves that the vital spark is more 
