EFFECTS OF CHLORIDE OF HYDROCARBON. 245 
ART. LIT.— NOTES ON THE ANESTHETIC EFFECTS OF CHLO- 
RIDE OF HYDROCARBON, NITRATE OF ETHYLE, BENZIN, 
ALDEHYDE, AND BISULPHURET OF CARBON. By J. Y. 
Simpson. M. D., Professor of Midwifery in the University of Edin- 
burgh. 
During the last few months, two or three different sub- 
stances have been mentioned as additional anaesthetic agents: 
but our medical journals have afforded little or no detailed 
notice of their effects. The few following notes, however 
imperfect, may not therefore be uninteresting ; more parti- 
cularly as they are the result of direct experiments upon 
myself and others with. the agents in question. In most of 
these experiments, I had the kind and able assistance of 
Dr. Keith and Dr. Duncan. 
When first publishing, in November last, upon the anaes- 
thetic properties of chloroform, 1 stated that, " in making 
a variety of experiments upon the inhalation of different 
volatile chemical liquids, I have, in addition to perchloride 
of formyie, breathed chloride of hydrocarbon, acetone, 
nitrate of oxide of ethyle, benzin, the vapour of iodoform, 
&c. I may probably (I added) take another opportunity 
of describing the result.'' (See Lancet for 20th November, 
1847, p. 549.) 
Three of the substances which I named in the preceding 
list, produce, when inhaled, a state of anaesthetic insensi-bi- 
lity, viz., chloride of hydrocarbon, nitrate of oxide of ethyle, 
and benzin 
Chloride of Hydrocarbon. — Chloride of Hydrocarbon, or 
Dutch liquid, as it is often termed, in consequence of being 
first discovered by the Dutch chemists of the last century, 
is one of the various fluids to which the name of chloric 
ether was for some time given. 
When equal parts of olefiant gas and chlorine are mixed 
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