ON THE CAUSE AND PREVENTION OF

DEATH FROM CHLOROFORM.

LECTURE III.,* CONCLUDED WITH COMMENTARY.

THE TREATMENT OF CHLOROFORM COLLAPSE;

RESUSCITATION.

HEN, unhappily, fatal signs occur in the human subject from the inhalation of chloroform, there is usually a rush of attempts

to call back the phenomena of life. One observer will flip the motionless body with a towel, or briskly rub the limbs; another will "try galvanism "; a third will commence artificial respiration; a fourth will combine every method. In a few cases there have been recoveries from seeming death during the application of some particular plan; thereupon that plan has been vaunted as the plan, it has been tried again, and has not succeeded, and then it is urged that, in the case where it seemed to succeed, it was merely coincident with natural recovery.

On the whole, nothing whatever has been learned from the human subject as to the best procedure after apparent death from chloroform, nor is it likely that anything can be learnt in this manner. In the first

* Delivered April 5th, 1870.

VOL. IX.

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