Remarks on the superinduction of anaesthesia in natural and morbid parturition : with cases illustrative of the use and effects of chloroform in obstetric practice / By J.Y. Simpson...With an appendix.

  • Simpson, James Young, 1811-1870.
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the superinduction of anaesthesia in natural and morbid parturition : with cases illustrative of the use and effects of chloroform in obstetric practice / By J.Y. Simpson...With an appendix. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

    39/58 (page 33)
    for any length of time, without experiencing this inconvenience; Chloroform, so far as 1 can judge, has not the same objection. Whether Chloroform will supersede the other Ethers as an anaesthe- tic, is yet unsettled. The present impression is in favor of this expecta- tion, but however strongly our bias may be in this direction, we must wait a little before we conclude to banish Sulphuric Ether, and receive exclusively its new relation. We may venture to say, perhaps without qualification, that the article so happily introduced into practice by Pro- fessor Simpson, is the most valuable improvement on Etherization hith- erto made. JOHN C. WARREN. Note.—Perhaps it will be an advantage to know the latest improvement of the French chemists, in the mode of preparing chloroform. Take 10 kilogr (26/4. 9oz. idr. 20r/r.) of the chlorinated lime of commerce at about 90°; dilute carefully in CO kilogr (1G0/A. Soz. 2dr.) of water j fill a brass still, up to two-thirds only, with the calcareous milk which results from this combination; add 2 kilogr (576. ioz. Idr. IZgr.) of alcohol 85. Adapt the capi- tal and worm ; then apply a brisk fire underneath the apparatus. At about 80° the action produced is such as would raise the mass and cause it to pass in the recipient, if the fire were not promptly abstracted. After a few moments, dis- tillation commences and goes on rapidly; it terminates almost entirely of itself:— This is known by the almost entire absence of the sweetish taste of chloroform in the liquors in process of distillation. The produce is composed of two layers; the inferior is dense, and of a slight yellowish hue; it is chloroform mixed with alcohol and tainted with a little chlorine. The superior layer, more abundant, is a mixture, now and then milky, of water, alcohol, and chloroform, or chloric ether. A certain quantity of this produce is deposited in about twenty-four hours. The chloroform is separated by decantation, and washed with water; then with a weak solution of carbonate of soda, which frees it from the chlorine; add chloride of calcium, and rectify by distillation per balneum maris. M. Soubeiran thinks that for medical use it is superfluous to rectify anew by sulphuric acid. The waters which float on the chloroform in the direct produce of distilla- tion, and those that have been used to wash it, are united and spread with a new quantity of water and distilled per balneum maris. The chloroform soon passes, carrying away a little alcoholized water which floats upon it. Purify as directed above. What renders the fabrication of chloroform difficult, is the necessity in which the operator is placed, of working with chlorinated lime considerably spread, in order to enable him to separate impurities; hence, the necessity of operating with vases of great capacity, and of acting at the same time with very limited quantities of alcohol. In the actual state, the quantity of the produce is always sufficiently restricted. M. SOtTBEIPvAN.