The only direction which it is usually requisite to give beforehand, to the patient who is to inhale chloroform, is to avoid taking a meal previous to the inhalation; for chloroform is very apt to cause vomiting, if inhaled whilst there is a quantity of food in the stomach. The sickness is not attended with any danger, but it constitutes an unpleasantness and inconvenience which it is desirable to avoid. The best time of all for an operation under chloroform is before breakfast, but the customs and arrangements of this country do not often admit of that time being chosen, and it is unadvisable to make the patient fast beyond his usual hour. It answers very well to perform an operation about the time when the patient would be ready for another meal, or, if the time of operation fall two or three hours after the usual time of eating, to request the patient to make only a slender repast at that time, so as just to prevent the feeling of hunger. It is impossible to prevent vomiting in some cases with the best precautions, for the stomach occasionally will not digest when the patient is expecting a surgical operation, and the breakfast may be rejected in an unaltered state hours after it has been taken. In other cases the patient does not vomit, even when he inhales chloroform shortly after a full meal. The most convenient position in which the patient can be placed whilst taking chloroform is lying on the back, or side, as he is then duly supported in the state of insensibility, and can be more easily restrained if he struggle whilst becoming insensible. The semi-recumbent posture on a sofa does very well, and there is no objection to the sitting posture, when that is most convenient to the operator. In that case, however, the patient should be placed in a large easy chair with a high back, so that the head as well as the trunk may be supported without any effort, otherwise he would have a tendency to slide or fall when insensible. It has been said that it is unsafe to give chloroform in the sitting posture, on the supposition that it would in some cases so weaken the power of the heart, as to render it unable to send the blood to the brain. Observation has proved, however, that chloroform usually increases the force of the circulation; and although the horizontal position is certainly the best for the patient under an operation in all circumstances, I consider that the sitting posture is by no means a source of danger, when chloroform is given, if the ordinary precaution be used, which would be used without chloroform—that of placing the patient horizontally if symptoms of faintness come on. I have preserved notes of nine hundred and forty-nine cases in which I have given chloroform to patients in the sitting posture, and no ill effects have arisen in any of these cases.