IN THE DENTAL CHAIR.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLI, Issue 293, 12 December 1907, Page 6

IN THE DENTAL CHAIR.

A remarkable incident, writes a medical correspondent in the Standard, happened recently at a London dental hospital. A young woman went there to have five teeth extracted. The anaesthetic decided upon by the dental surgeon was ethyl chloride, and this was administered by the usual form of apparatus. An indiaI rubber cap is placed over the patient's mouth and nostrils, and connected with'it is a bag into which a sealed capsule of ethyl chloride is introduced. By the turning of a screw from the outside the capsule is broken and the anaesthetic liberated. The screw was turned, the patient went off gradually into the usual condition of insensibility, five teeth were extracted, and the patient awakened without feeling any part of the operation. The whole case appeared perfectly normal. Only when the young woman had left the room and the apparatus was being made ready for another patient it was discovered that the capsule of ethyl chloride had by some mischance not been broken at all. The whole condition of insensibility had been brought about by the self-hypnotism of the patient. The idea that an ancesthetic was be- ! ing administered was so strong in her mind that she had passed into insensibility entirely by hypnotic suggestion. Another case of a similar nature has occurred at the same dental hospital. In this instance ethyl chloride was being sprayed on to the I gums in order to freeze them and I produce local anaesthesia. It was j afterwards found that a "gag" had j been so placed in the mouth as to i screen the -gums from the ethyl chloride, but yet the mere suggestion that it had frozen them was sufficient to prevent the patient feeling ! any pain when the tooth was being i extracted. j