it is spoken of as being present in an extreme degree. This was in a man, aged sixty-five, the oldest person included amongst those who died from chloroform. When we consider how common is fatty degeneration of the heart, especially amongst old persons and those for a long time confined to bed, it is very probable that this affection has been proportionally as frequent, amongst the patients who have inhaled chloroform without ill effects, as in the fatal cases of its inhalation. There are nine of the fatal cases in which the age of the patient is not stated. In the other forty-one cases, the ages, when grouped in decennial periods, are shown in the following table, the last column of which shows the proportion which the deaths bear at each period to the number living at that period, out of a thousand persons of all ages in England and Wales. Under 5 years 0 0 5 and under 15 3 ¹⁄₇₆ 15 „ 25 11 ¹⁄₁₈ 25 „ 35 10 ¹⁄₁₅ 35 „ 45 11 ⅒ 45 „ 55 3 ¹⁄₂₇ 55 „ 65 2 ¹⁄₂₆ 65 and upwards 1 ¹⁄₄₄ The nine persons whose ages are not given were all adults; one is spoken of as a young man, and another as a young woman, and the rest are mentioned in such a manner that it is certain they were not old people. It follows, therefore, that so far as is known, there has been a complete immunity from death by chloroform at both extremes of life. I have already given my reasons for rejecting Dr. Aschendorf’s case of an infant, and also the case of a gentleman, aged seventy-three, who died whilst inhaling chloroform. The youngest patient who died from chloroform was seven or eight years of age, and the oldest sixty-five, being the only death above sixty. The above table of the ages shows that the number of deaths, in proportion to the number living, increased rapidly after the age of twenty-five, and decreased rapidly after the age of forty-five. The small number of deaths between fifteen and twenty-five may be partly due to the circumstance that surgical operations are but seldom required at this period of life; but the decrease after the age of forty-five cannot be explained in this way; for persons become more liable to require surgical operations as they advance in years. Operations are often performed in infancy and old age, periods at which deaths from chloroform have not been recorded. The greatest proportion of deaths having occurred from thirty-five to forty-five, when the system is often more robust than at any other period, it cannot be supposed that an inability to bear the usual dose of chloroform, when carefully administered, is the ordinary cause of death from this agent.