(Merling, Vinci.) White powder, soluble in 33 parts of water. While the effects of eucain are immediate and produce anesthesia as thoroughly as cocain, it has the objection of producing local hyperemia and increased edema of the parts injected. This often interferes with the successful outcome of the first operation, as will be later shown. The advantage over cocain, however, is that a solution of eucain can be sterilized by boiling without reducing its usefulness, which in itself is an item, since both are expensive, and if we must prepare a cocain solution fresh for each day we must discard all that has not been used, while with eucain the same preparation can be safely used over and over, after proper sterilization.
The two- and three-per-cent solutions are most employed to the extent of from 10 to 60 minims. Its subcutaneous effect is immediate, lasting from ten to twenty-five minutes. When applied locally to mucous membranes, the five-per-cent solutions are used.
Principally it may be said that eucain does not exhibit the toxic properties of cocain, the author having employed it in over 5,000 cases with no untoward effect.
Liquid Air
Liquid air is suggested as a means of local anesthesia by A. C. White. He recommends its intermittent application instead of freezing the part as with ethyl chlorid. It is sprayed on the parts and produces immediately anemia and insensitiveness. There is no hemorrhage during its use, so that dressings may be applied before the parts assume their circulatory function; an advantage of considerable value in plastic surgery. No untoward results follow its use.
Stovain
(Benzoyl-ethyl-dimethylamin-opropanol hydrochlorid)
(Fourneau.) This is the latest preparation advocated for local anesthesia. It is a synthetic product, derived from tertiary amyl alcohol. It is less toxic than cocain, and has been used more or less in the past years experimentally, but the consensus of opinion seems to be against its use. Jennesco has used it extensively in conjunction with strychnin in spinal anesthesia, but the surgeon in general has not taken kindly to it. In plastic surgery, as used locally, it has been little employed, eucain being the most serviceable for the purpose.