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
_Case 13_ occurred at Shrewsbury, to a Mrs. Jones, a patient of Mr.
Clement, surgeon, who had partly performed the operation of excision of
the eyeball, when his patient suddenly died. Mr. Clement has, I believe,
not published any account of the case, but the evidence which he gave at
the inquest was reported in various local newspapers, and copied into
the medical journals. The death was very characteristic of the effects
of chloroform vapour not sufficiently diluted. Mr. Clement is reported
to have said: “He gave her but a small dose to commence with, imbibed
from a sponge, and then commenced the operation. Finding that did not
make her insensible, about a drachm more was poured on the sponge, which
she inhaled again for a few seconds. He then went on with the operation,
and shortly afterwards heard a peculiar sound, which he could not
describe, and she died in a moment; all the attempts to rouse her proved
ineffectual. She spoke in Welsh before she died, but so quickly that he
did not know what she said; he had no doubt that she died from the
effects of the chloroform.”[83]
_Case 14_ occurred at Berlin. The subject of it was a young lady twenty
years of age, of good health, well made, and of a good constitution. The
chloroform was inhaled for the extraction of a tooth. It was
administered on a sponge, covered with a napkin. The dentist who
administered it was not a medical man. He made five unsuccessful
attempts to extract the tooth under chloroform. Three of these attempts
were at nine in the morning, and two about noon, just before the
accident. His patient suddenly died almost at the commencement of the
last attempt to administer chloroform, stretching herself out, and
frothing at the mouth at the moment of death; the countenance at the
same time becoming livid.
An examination of the body took place fifty hours after death, when
putrefaction had set in.
“The lungs presented nothing morbid; the bronchi contained a little
bloody froth. The blood was of the colour and consistence of cherry
juice. The heart was soft, flabby and collapsed. Its coronary vessels
and cavities were empty, and presented the bluish-red discoloration of
decomposition.”[84] The other organs were healthy.
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