Action of anaesthetics on the blood corpuscles / by J.H. McQuillen.

  • McQuillen, J. H. (John Hugh), 1826-1879.
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Action of anaesthetics on the blood corpuscles / by J.H. McQuillen. 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.

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    i’j'J .All. '**- *-r - s , j/’li*' S*Sj'-c '!/^'^> ‘•V ., [From thk Dental Cosmos, March, 1809.] —— / ■? ' / ACTION V OF ANESTHETICS ON THE BLOOD CORPUSCLES. BY J. H. McQUILLEN, M.D., D.D.S., PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGY IN PHILAKELPHIA DENTAL COLLEGE. rIx tlie October number of the Dental Cosmos a report was presented of a series of experiments performed by me, on a number of animals, with the view of ascertaining whether the assertion made by a distin- guished experimentalist and scientist of England, that nitrous oxide, even under the most delicate manipulation, would prove destructive to life, could be possible. These experiments, which clearly demonstrated the assertion to be unfounded, were not performed in private, but in the presence of a number of gentlemen whose experience in the liseof anes- thetics and whose scientific knowledge made them competent judges. First performed before the members of the Odontographic Society of Pennsylvania, they were repeated, after an interval of three weeks, on the same animals, in the presence of the members of the Biological and Microscopical Department of the Academy of Natural Sciences. A month subsequent to the last-named occasion, one of these animals, a rabbit, in the presence of a number of gentlemen, was placed under the influence of nitrous oxide, and kept in a profound state of narcosis for one hour and five minutes, by alternating atmospheric air and nitrous oxide, removing the inhaler ever and anon for that purpose. Without question the animal could have been kept in the same condition double or treble the time without injury to it, for in a few minutes after re- moving the anaesthetic entirely, the animal was restored to conscious- ness, and leaped from the table to the floor, and for a number of weeks after this ran about my premises in a healthy and lively condition, and no doubt would have been still alive had I not demonstrated on him before the students of the Philadelphia Dental College the absorption