The above case differs to a certain extent from those previously quoted, inasmuch as the first symptoms of danger were those of profound coma, and of threatened death by apnœa, as a consequence of the action of the chloroform on the medulla oblongata and nerves of respiration. In addition to this cause of danger, however, the chloroform present in the lungs at the moment when the inhalation was discontinued must have acted directly on the heart, or the prompt assistance of so able an authority on asphyxia as Mr. Erichsen, the moment the breathing was suspended, would surely have restored the patient. The mode of death, although not exactly the same as that in Experiment 24 (page 110), differs from that in the previous experiment, where the heart’s action was good and distinct after the breathing ceased; it resembles the mode of dying in many animals that I have killed with chloroform; being, in fact, a combination of death by apnœa and cardiac syncope, which generally occurs when the quantity of vapour in the respired air is intermediate between that in Experiments 23 and 24, or somewhere between 5 and 10 per cent. A great peculiarity in the way in which chloroform was administered in the case we are considering was that the head and face of the patient were covered by a towel, under which the lint wetted with chloroform was held. The countenance and state of respiration could not be observed in this mode of giving the chloroform; the person administering it had to depend almost entirely on the pulse; and, except for this cause, there is every reason to conclude that the chloroform would have been withdrawn in this instance in time to save the patient. It was not apparently till a peculiar and very loud stertor attracted the attention of the operating surgeon himself, that the inhalation was discontinued, and the face was already suffused. This plan of administering chloroform with the head and shoulders of the patient covered with a towel, was introduced by Mr. Clover, who was for several years a resident officer of the institution; and it is but right to state that it led to no accident in his hands; in those of his successors it was, however, less successful; three accidents having occurred in a little more than a year and a half. I much regret to find that Mr. Erichsen recommends this method of giving chloroform in the edition of his work on surgery recently published.