A guide to therapeutics / by Robert Farquharson.

  • Farquharson, Robert, 1836-1918.
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A guide to therapeutics / by Robert Farquharson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    137/320 (page 125)
    is heard. Complete anaesthesia is pi-oved by abolition of reflex action, as shown by insensibility of the eye, by muscular re- laxation, and by insensibility to pain. When the operation is over, let 1 he patient recover naturally, and do not disturb his sleep by the purposeless towel flickings so frequently to be seen in operating theatres. As regai'ds the quantity of chloroform to be used for each inhalation, it is impossible to lay down any rule, for the incon- veniences occasionally met with seem to bear no sort of propor- tion to the dose of the anaesthetic. If the chloroform be of good quality, it is safer, as shown by Brunton, to give it freely, and it is better to trust to our own care and skill than to the fancied safety of inhalei-s. It can never be possible to deprive an unnatm'al condition like profound anaesthesia of all dangers, and even the theoretically safe instrument of Clover, with its guaranteed 3 per cent, of chloroform vapour, has been shown to be not absolutely free from risks. It would be very satisfactory could we lay down any laws for our guidance in anticipating danger from chloroform inhalation in any special class of cases, but this unfortunately we cannot do. It is now well known that neither organic disease of the heart nor conditions of extreme debility are contra-indications; and although fatty heart is frequently discovered post mortem, we cannot absolutely state that this is not a mere coincidence, nor can we pretend to diagnose such degeneration with any certainty during life. Some authorities believe that chloroform is more dangerous to the old than the middle-aged or young, and there seems no doubt that habitual topers are brought under its in- fluence with considerable difficulty. Chloroform is most generally given internally under the form of the spiritus chloroformi or chloric ether in doses of from llix. to 5j.