The cessation of respiration under chloroform, and its restoration by a new method / by R. Milne Murray.

  • Murray, R. Milne (Robert Milne), 1855-1904.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The cessation of respiration under chloroform, and its restoration by a new method / by R. Milne Murray. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    6/36 (page 4)
    in this department. Moreover, all agree that for children chloroform rivals all other anaesthetics in the efficiency and safety of its action. Such being the case, it is probable that these advantages will secure for chloroform a very considerable employment in surgery and obstetrics, and will render its action a study of deep interest to the practical surgeon. On this ground I have ventured to bring before the Society an account of some observations I have been able to make, and which seem to me to involve points of some practical interest in relation to the physiological action of chloro- form. I have no purpose of pleading the cause of one anesthetic over the other. My object is merely to call attention to some features of the action of chloroform which seem to me to have been overlooked in previous investigations. When we turn to the records of observations on the action of chloroform, we are struck with the amount of attention bestowed on the effect of its administration on the action of the heart and blood pressure, and with the careful records which have been made of this; while, at the same time, the effect on the respiration is indicated in comparatively loose terms, and graphic records are seldom given. It would seem, indeed, that while the potency of chloroform as a respiratory poison was recognised from the first, the difference of its action as compared with ether on the heart and circulation has engrossed the attention of observers. Thus it has come about that less attention has been paid to the respiratory changes brought about by its influence than to the remarkable effects produced on the circulatory system. The records of these latter changes are ample and accurate. Thus the Glasgow Committee1 concerned themselves almost wholly with the circulation, and give several important manometric tracings of blood pressure, but none of the respiration, during any of the experiments, and their account of the respiratory phenomena is by no means so full as it might be. And they are by no means singular in this respect, the same meagreness of detail being characteristic of other reports. As my observations have shown me that the process of respira- tory cessation in animals does not always present the same type, but is subject to variations of marked character, I have thought I might be justified, in view of this deficiency of existing records, in bringing these observations under notice. My experiments were conducted on rabbits; and while I do not mean that we can justifiably reason directly from them to othei animals, yet it seems unlikely that the striking features of the action of chloroform on their respiratory process will not be repeated in one way or other in higher animals. The series of experiments under discussion have been under- taken as a side issue in a research into the action of the uterus in rabbits, on which I have been engaged for some time. In my 1 British Medical Journal, vol. ii., 1880.