OPERATION METHODS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21253, 5 August 1932, Page 9

OPERATION METHODS

DEATH UNDER ANAESTHETIC PATHOLOGIST'S CRITICISM At an inquest in Melbourne recently regarding the death of a woman, aged 42 years, who died-under a spinal anaesthetic at the Melbourne Hospital, it was stated in evidence that the anaesthetic had been administered to her while she was in bed, and that later she was lifted by hand on' to a trolley and conveyed to the operating table. She died within 25 minutes of the administration of the anaesthetic. In giving evidence the Government pathologist, Dr. C. H. Mollison, who mado a post-mortem examination, said that ho considered that the operation had been carried out in a proper manner, but he thought that it was wrong to have moved the patient from her bed to the operating table after the anaesthetic had been administered, because in transporting patients after the administration of a spinal anaesthetic the body might bo unduly depressed with tho consequent flow of the anaesthetic toward the brain. Dr. Mollison expressed preference for the administration of anaesthetic on the operating table. The coroner found that the deceased had died from cardiac and ' respiratory failure arising from a spinal anaesthetic, which, owing to the accidental position of her body after tho introduction of the anaesthotic, had paralysed tho cardiac and nerve centres.