BLOOD PRESSURE IN ANIMALS.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1842, 17 January 1880, Page 3

BLOOD PRESSURE IN ANIMALS.

The third report on the action of ansosthetios to the scientific grants committee of the British Medical Association has been made recently, the report embracing the results of investigating the condition of the blood pressure in animals under tho influence of chloroform, ethidine, and ether. The experiments were made upon rabbits and dogs, and seem to have been performed with great care. The facts obtained from the observations (says the “ Medical Record ”) warranted tbe committee in reaching the following conclusions: Ether, when administered to ani mals, has no appreciable effect in reducing blood pressure ; chloroform and ethidine have a decided effect in that direction. Chloroform has sometimes an unexpected and apparently capricious effect on the heart’s action. The occurrence of these sudden and unlocked for effects are a source of serious danger, because the blood pressure is with great rapidity reduced to almost zero, while the pulsations are greatly retarded or even stopped. By ethidine tho reduction of blood pressure is not, so far as has been observed, through suddeu and unexpected depressions. Chloroform may cause death by primarily paralysing either the heart or the respiration; Although not free from danger on the aide of the heart and the respiration, ethidine is, in a very high degree, safer than chloroform, inasmuch as the former does not compromise the heart as does the latter. A legitimate deduction from the facts given is that ether is by far the safest of the three anaesthetics used, and that ethidine is much safer than chloroform, and equally efficient.