Chloroform.

Feilding Star, Volume I, Issue 291, 14 June 1907, Page 2

Chloroform.

Most folk have a dread of chloroform, mainly becamse it is a region little explored, and disastrous results have followed upon excursions of the kind. The worst feature about the use of the anaesthetic is that even medical men themselves are flabbergasted about "the reason for most unexpected results. One of tho most recent deaths from chloroform, that of a lad named Kingsland, who died at Invercargill, comes within the category of mysteries, and affords an instance of the cases which give plenty of room for conjecture. The boy had a cyst in his upper jaw, and Mr Smith, dentist, helped by four thoroughly competent assistants, performed an operation to remove it. It was necessary to subject the lad to a somewhat prolonged period of anaesthesia. Chloroform was administered by Dr. Hogg, an experienced practitioner, with a reputation for .carefulness. The boy took the anaesthetic well, and was showing signs, of returning consciousness, when suddenly indications of heart failure developed. Drs. Hunter aud Ewart were called in, and every restorative means that they could think of was applied, but nothing was any good, and the boy died. Tavo other doctors performed an autopsy, and found that the lad was in every way very healthy. They saw nothing to account for death. Dr. Hogg said that the immediate cause of death was heart failure from chloroform, but that he could offer no explanation other than that there are personal idiosyncrasies which make it inadvisable to give certain drugs to certain people. These could not be discovered till after the fact. The doctors who made the examination added that the whole question of death under chloroform was a mystery, and in a case of this sort, where the patient was young and healthy, most mysterious^ No satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon could be found in any of the authorities.