40 
AMYLENE  condemned. 
AMYLENE  CONDEMNED  AT  THE  ACADEMIE  DE  ME DE CINE, 
PARIS. 
M.  Giraldes  having  recently  sent  a  paper  to  the  Academy, 
entitled,  "  Clinical  Study  of  Amylene,"  MM.  Robert,  Larrey, 
and  Jobert  formed  the  committee  to  which  it  was  referred.  In 
the  report  read  on  the  18th  inst.,  M.  Jobert  details  various  ex- 
periments and  observations  he  has  since  made  with  this  substance, 
both  with  and  without  apparatus  ;  and  he  comes  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  amylene  exerts  an  energetic  and  dangerous  influence. 
The  statement  that  has  been  made,  that  it  is  less  active  than 
chloroform,  is  only  true  when  it  is  administered  in  the  open  air, 
and  is  explained,  he  says,  by  the  rapidity  of  its  evaporation.  If 
only  a  sponge  be  employed,  there  are  only  produced,  after  a 
period  varying  from  nine  to  nineteen  minutes,  muscular  agitation 
and  acceleration  of  pulse,  effects  that  ensue  in  from  five  to  seven 
minutes  if  the  sponge  be  placed  in  a  cone  of  pasteboard.  If  an 
apparatus  be  employed,  however,  amylene  becomes  a  most  ener- 
getic anaesthetic,  the  desired  result  occurring  in  two,  and  often 
in  one  minute.  The  effects  of  this  agent  are  the  increase  of  the 
number  of  the  pulse  by  thirty  or  forty,  the  modification  of  the 
color  of  the  blood,  and  the  perturbation  of  the  nervous  system, 
inducing  insensibility,  coma,  and  the  abolition  of  the  intellectual 
power.  It  is  thus  a  toxical  agent,  acting  simultaneously  upon 
the  vascular  and  nervous  systems.  M.  Giraldes  does  not  advance 
sufficient  proof  that  amylene  is  less  dangerous  than  chloroform  ; 
and  even  M.  Robert's  proposition  of  employing  it  in  certain  ex- 
ceptional cases  is  not  admissible,  inasmuch  as  amylene  possesses 
the  inconveniences,  without  the  advantages,  of  chloroform. 
Chloroform  does  not,  like  amylene,  deprive  the  blood  of  its  red 
color  ;  and  while  chloroform  depresses  and  renders  the  pulse 
slower,  amylene  quickens  it,  producing  congestion  of  organs. 
Amylene  is  of  difficult  administration,  while  chloroform  is  easily 
given.  Chloroform  has  furnished  to  M.  Jobert  the  same  satis- 
factory results  at  all  ages,  and  he  believes  that  it  is  not  more  in- 
jurious in  infancy  than  at  a  later  period.  He  proposed  that  the 
conclusions  of  the  author  in  favor  of  amylene  should  not  be  re- 
ceived ;  but  as  the  communication  is  interesting  in  other  points, 
the  thanks  of  the  Academy  should  be  returned  for  it. 
3 
