[54]. Curious arguments are sometimes used in support of the idea of peculiarities and idiosyncrasies. A medical man informed me, one day, that he had seen a patient inhale an ounce of chloroform without any effect. I expressed my opinion that if she had taken the vapour of one drachm into her lungs within four minutes, or the vapour of a little more than half a drachm within two minutes, she would have been insensible; and that the chloroform had mostly evaporated into the room, without entering the patient’s lungs. Then, he said, it would have made all of us insensible. Now to charge the air of a moderate sized room of twenty feet square and ten feet high, uniformly with only a grain and a half of chloroform to each hundred cubic inches, so that, if all the crevices were closed, a person inside might, in course of time, absorb about eighteen minims of the medicine, and be rendered insensible, would require nearly fifteen pounds of chloroform.
[55]. The increase of effects of chloroform after the inhalation is discontinued, was pointed out by Prof. Sédillot of Strasbourg and myself almost simultaneously. I explained the circumstance in a paper read to the Westminster Medical Society, on January 8th, 1848, and M. Sédillot announced it to the Academy of Sciences of Paris, on January 10th. My remarks were published in the Medical Gazette of January 14th, and those of M. Sédillot in the Gazette Médicale of January 15th.
[56]. I have reason to conclude that the increased secretion of saliva is caused, not so much by the action of the chloroform on the mucous membrane of the mouth, and the extremities of the gland ducts, as by its action on the capillary circulation of the glands themselves; for on inhaling the vapour carefully by the nostrils, so that none enters the mouth, I still find that there is an increased secretion of saliva.
[57]. London Journal of Medicine, April 1852.
In one of the latest communications of Dr. Marshall Hall to the Lancet, he did me the honour to quote the account of the three following experiments, together with some accompanying remarks from the London Journal of Medicine, and to make the following observation respecting the pages from which he quoted.
“I have no hesitation in affirming that the first three pages of this paper are amongst the most able and valuable in physiology, and I beg to be allowed to reproduce them in the pages of the Lancet.” (Lancet, April 18th, 1857, p. 397.)
[58]. Edin. Med. and Surg. Journal, vol. lviii.
[59]. Lond. Med. Gaz., vol. xlii, p. 414.
[60]. London Journal of Medicine, April, 1852.
[61]. London Medical Gazette, vol. xlii, 1848, p. 109.