On chloroform and other anæsthetics: their action and administrationSnow, John
History
On chloroform and other anæsthetics: their action and administration
Snow, John
Anesthetics; Chloroform; Snow, John, 1813-1858
The above account is published in the _Medical Gazette_ as communicated
by Mr. Solly, but it is clearly not written by him, and it presents a
very confused narrative of what occurred. If we are to understand the
events in the sequence in which they are related, we must conclude that
the patient became insensible and had the operation performed, that he
then exhibited alarming symptoms for which cold water was dashed in his
face and other measures were employed, and yet that after this he
struggled for about a minute. This would be a state of things
inconsistent, in my opinion, with death from chloroform; but possibly
the proper sequence is not observed in detailing what occurred. There is
some obscurity also about the amount of chloroform used in connection
with what remained on removing the inhaler. If the sponge was adapted to
hold a drachm in the proper manner, the chloroform could not splash
about on its falling, unless there was a good deal more than a drachm in
it. But whatever was the quantity of chloroform remaining in the sponge,
as it was in a condition to splash about, it is difficult to perceive
what prevented the liquid chloroform from dropping into the patient’s
throat, as he lay on his back in bed. Chloroform is as pungent as the
essential oils. I have been informed of a case in which a patient was
nearly suffocated by one drop falling into the throat; and the narrative
of what occurred to Mr. Solly’s patient is not at all inconsistent with
death from spasm of the glottis arising from this cause. If, however,
the patient died from the vapour of chloroform, we must conclude that he
inhaled it at one moment not sufficiently diluted with air.
The chloroform in this case was administered by a non-medical person—a
sort of surgery-man. After this accident, however, the chloroform in St.
Thomas’s Hospital was always entrusted to some one belonging to the
profession.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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