EFFECTS OP CHLORIDE OF HYDROCARBON. 249 
1 have breathed the vapour of bisnlphnret of carbon, and 
exhibited it to about twenty other individ'ials, and it is cer- 
tainly a very rapid and powerful anaesthetic. One or two 
stated that they found it even nfDre pleasant than chloro- 
form; but in several it produced depressing: and disagree- 
able visions, and was followed for some hours by headache 
and giddiness, even when given only in small doses. In one 
instance I exhibited it, with Mr. Miller's permission, to a 
patient, from whom he removed a tumour of the mamma. 
It very speedily produced a full anaesthetic effect ; but it 
was difficult to regulate it during the op.'.ration. The patient 
was restless in the latter part of il ; hut felt nothing. Like 
several others when under it, her eyes remamed wide open. 
After the operation she was extremely sick, with much and 
long-continued he.idarhe; and, for fifty or sixty hours sub- 
sequently, her pulse was liigh and rapid, witliout rigour or 
symptoms of fever. 
I tried its effects in a case of midwifery, in presence of 
Dr. Weir, Dr. Duncan, Mr. Norris, and a number of the 
pupils of the Maternity Hospital. It was employed at 
intervals durisig three quarters of an hour. The patient 
was easily brought under its inHuence, a few inspirations 
sufficing for that purpose; hut it was found altogetlier im- 
possible to produce by it the kind of continuous sleep attend- 
ing the use of chloroform. Its action was so strong, that 
when given, as a pain threatened or commenced, it imme- 
diately affected the power of the uterine contractions, so as 
often to suspend them ; and yet its effects were so transient 
that the state of anaesihesia had generally passed off within 
a minute or two afterwards. The patietit anxiously asiied 
for it at the commencement of each pain. During its use 
she was occasionally sick, and vortiiied several times. Lat- 
terly, her respiration became rapid, and her pulse rose ex- 
tremely high. I then changed the inhalation for chloro- 
form, and, under it, the patient slept quietly on for twenty 
minutes, when the cliild was born. During these twenty 
24' 
