On the inhalation of chloroform : ita anæsthetic effects and practical uses / by Robert Dunn.

  • Dunn, Robert, 1799-1877
Date:
[1851?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the inhalation of chloroform : ita anæsthetic effects and practical uses / by Robert Dunn. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    INHALATION OF CHLOROFORM: ITS ANAESTHETIC EFFECTS AND PRACTICAL USES. By ROBERT DUNN, M.R.C.S. &c. (Read before the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London, April 22, 1851.) From the London Medical Gazette. There can be no doubt that the anaes¬ thetic effects of the inhalation of the vapour of chloroform are due to its entering the circulation, and to its being carried by the blood to the vesicular matter of the sensory ganglia, and to the cells, or cell nuclei, at the peripheral extremities of the afferent nerves. And while it is reasonable to infer that, in thus circulating with the blood through the encephalon, its presence, like that of any similar morbific agent, must more or less affect all the sensory feelings and psychical manifestations, it is neverthe¬ less abundantly manifest that a kind of elective affinity exists, by virtue of which the vesicular matter of one centre of action becomes affected before that of another; for, duringtheslow and gradual inhalation of the vapour, the function of sensation is suspended before that of in¬ tellectual action,—the consciousness of feeling is obliterated, and consequently immunity from pain secured, before m- tellectual consciousness is totally abo¬ lished. M. Flourens was, I believe, the first to point out the tendency of certain morbific agents to act primarily and specially on one nervous centre in preference to that of another, by virtue of some special elective affinity between such agents and certain ganglia of the encephalon. Before entering, however, upon the consideration of the physiological effects of the inhalation of chloroform, it appears to me expe¬ dient to premise some observations on the functions of the nervous centres themselves, with a view to the better appreciation of its application to prac¬ tical purposes. The nervous system of man, in ac¬ cordance with its office and the nature of its functions, is generally considered to admit of a three-fold division:—into the physical, or excito-motory and re¬ flex,—the nutritive and secretory, or ganglionic,—and the sentient, psychical, and voluntary,or cerebro-spinal system. It is admitted that there is no point in physiology more clearly made out than that the great hemispherical gang¬ lia are exclusively the seat of perception, and its associate memory,—the centre of intellectual action, and of all the operations of thought,—“ the sole recep¬ tacle,” in the language of Cuvier, “ where sensations become perceived and consummatedformed into ideas by their ganglionic action, and where the will exerts its power. But comparative anatomy, pathological research, and ex¬ perimental inquiry, alike establish the position that the cerebrum is neither the seat of sensation nor of motion. They indisputably demonstrate that the for-