Surgical experience of chloroform / By James Miller.

  • Miller, James, 1812-1864.
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Surgical experience of chloroform / By James Miller. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    XXXV. CHLOROFORM, AS AN ANAESTHETIC, HAS A DECIDED ADVANTAGE OVER ETHER. This is very obvious. The odour is much preferable; no inhaling machinery is required; there is little or no stimulation of the air-passages, no cough in inspiring, no mucous secre¬ tion, no risk to the lungs; the effect is more speedy and thorough, the transition stage more satisfactory; the after effects are free from hazard, and almost from discomfort; the quantity employed is very considerably less. Patients who have tried both, give a decided preference to the new agent. XXXVI. IN WHAT CASES IS ANESTHESIA INADMISSIBLE 1 That question has been in part answered; by excluding such operations on the mouth and nostrils, as are likely, by downward haemorrhage, into the air-passages, to cause death by suffocation. In cases of undoubtedly diseased heart also, or when from any cause we have reason to apprehend un¬ usual risk from syncope, as well as proneness to it, it may be a question whether chloroform be wisely given or not. And yet in many undoubted examples of diseased heart, it has been given, harmlessly. Tenderness of age need be no bar. In¬ deed it may almost be said, that the younger the patient the better suited for this anaesthesia. In the child of days or months, however, it is very obvious that extremest caution must be observed in regulating the dose. XXXVII. IS LIFE SAVED AS WELL AS PAIN ? We cannot yet tell with certainty; but my own hopes and thoughts, and observations, are clear on the affirmative. Even, however, if anaesthesia made no difference in the result of operations, as regards life, still the mere absence of suf-