Effects of chloroform and of strong chloric ether, as narcotic agents / by John C. Warren.

  • Warren, John Collins, 1778-1856.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Effects of chloroform and of strong chloric ether, as narcotic agents / by John C. Warren. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    should find a great engorgement of the lungs, of the right side of the heart, and probably also of the brain. Now as to the lungs, we find them engorged more or less in every case, but excessively engorged in four. And, on the whole, they do not present the degree of engorgement which accompanies as- phyxia. The same may be said of the heart. As to the brain, the accumulation in its vascular tern has been found to be for the most part very slight. The blood, in every case where it is men- tioned at all, was found in a fluid state. There does not, then, appear to be any morbid change uniformly exhibited in either of these organs, which authorizes us to consider the disturbance of such organ to be the immediate cause of death. The facts which we have collected and compared, while they do not support the doctrine that death occurs from a visible alteration in any of these great organs, seem to leave us only the nervous system, independent of vascular action or congestion, as the seat of the sudden change produced by the rapid passage of the narcotic principle to the great ner- vous centres. This is, indeed, to be considered a mere hypothesis at present; but, as the object of these remarks is altogether of a practical nature, I shall not undertake to examine the subject physio- logically, in order to prove the truth of this hypothe- sis. The fluidity of the blood, in every case where the blood is mentioned at all, goes to show, that its vitality had been suddenly destroyed by the action of a deleterious principle. The flaccid state of the