_Case 4_ was that of Madlle. Stock, aged thirty, and occurred at Boulogne, in May 1848. The operation was that of opening a sinus in the thigh, between two and three inches in length, at the bottom of which a small splinter of wood was found. M. Gorré, the surgeon who attended the patient, says: “I placed over the nostrils of the patient a handkerchief moistened with fifteen to twenty drops of chloroform at most.” It is necessary to remark, however, that a judicial examination of the bottle from which it had been taken, proved that from five to eight grammes had been used, a quantity equal to from 77 to 123 grains, and there are three drops of chloroform to a grain. M. Gorré proceeds to say: “Scarcely had she taken several inspirations, when she put her hand on the handkerchief to withdraw it, and cried with a plaintive voice, ‘I choke.’ Immediately the face became pale; the countenance changed; the breathing embarrassed; and she foamed at the mouth. At the same instant (and certainly less than a minute after the beginning of the inhalation), the handkerchief moistened with chloroform was withdrawn.” M. Gorré performed the operation, but he expressed the opinion afterwards that death had already taken place when he made the incision. Amongst the means used, with a view to resuscitate the patient, was inflation of the lungs, which was performed with such force as to produce permanent dilatation of the air-cells. The lungs, besides being distended from this cause, were found after death to be visibly engorged in their lower lobes. When cut into, a large quantity of black blood escaped. The cavities of the heart were empty, but the internal membrane, especially of the right cavities, was red. The tissue of the heart was pale, and was easily torn. Air was found in the pulmonary veins, and in most of the systemic veins throughout the body. The blood was very dark-coloured and fluid.[71] M. Gorré reported the above case to the Academy of Medicine of Paris, and a commission was appointed to inquire and report on it, who came to the following conclusions. “1. In the medico-legal fact submitted to our notice, we found no indication of the poisonous action of chloroform; and consequently we reply to the minister, that the patient of M. Gorré did not die from the effect of inhalation of that agent. “2. There have occurred a great number of analogous cases of sudden and unforeseen death, during operations, without any administration of chloroform, in which the most minute examinations have failed in detecting any assignable cause of death. “3. In the case in question, the most probable cause, under all circumstances, seems to have been the mixture of a considerable quantity of gas with the blood.”[72]