ETHER  VERSUS  CHLOROFORM. 
221 
ETHER  VERSUS  CHLOROFORM. 
To  the  Editor  of  the  Medical  Record. 
Sir — The  death  by  chloroform  which  recently  took  place  at 
Bellevue  Hospital,  gives  a  sad  interest  to  the  question  of  sur- 
gical anaesthesia.  The  repeated  accidents  which  have  occurred 
in  May,  1866,  in  Berlin,  June,  1866,  in  Philadelphia,  February, 
1867,  in  New  York,  have  naturally  enough  staggered  the  faith 
of  many  surgeons  in  the  great  anaesthetic. 
Allow  me,  sir,  to  refresh  the  minds  of  your  readers  with  refer- 
ence to  the  past  records  of  chloroform.  As  early  as  1853, 
Baudens  acknowledged  eighty  deaths,  and  A.  Forzet  found 
eighty-five.  In  1859  Barrier  de  Lyon  ascertained  that  there 
had  been  above  two  hundred  deaths.  Diday  collected  from  that 
date  to  1864,  twenty-one  cases  registered  in  England,  leaving  at 
least  as  many  which  were  unrecorded.  If  there  was  another 
drug  instrumental  in  the  destruction  of  so  many  lives,  would  it 
not  be  ejected  from  the  materia  medicaf  True,  the  fault  has 
been  put  on  the  impurity  of  the  article  employed  ;  but  how  often 
has  chloroform  been  used  in  case  of  accident,  in  its  purity,  as  in 
the  instance  of  Bellevue ;  showing  that  it  need  not  borrow  its 
toxic  properties  from  heterogeneous  substances.  Hence,  from 
1847,  the  date  of  the  beginning  of  the  use  of  anaesthesia,  sur- 
geons have  been  divided  into  two  classes,  the  chloroformists  and 
etherists  ;  and  though  the  first-named  had,  at  first,  the  advantage, 
their  rivals  have  steadily  persevered,  patient  and  unrelenting, 
in  their  efforts  to  demonstrate  the  general  efficiency  and  the  ab- 
solute safety  of  ether. 
In  1848,  Cantu  remarked  that  half  of  his  chloroformized  frogs 
died,  and  hardly  any  of  his  etherized  ones.  Sedillor  admits,  at 
the  same  date,  that  when  he  stops  giving  ether,  amaesthesia  may 
continue,  but  in  no  case  become  aggravated.  Not  so  with  chlor- 
oform ;  when  discontinued  after  insensibility  is  produced,  its 
action  is  continued,  its  symptoms  may  in  some  instances  cause 
death.  This  circumstance  constitutes  the  most  marked  difference 
between  the  anaesthetic  rivals. 
The  few  men  who  supported  this  view  against  triumphant 
