METHYLENUM BICHLORATUM.

Methylene bichloride, CH2Cl2. (Chloroform is Methylene trichloride.)

Authorities.

1 , Dr. Richardson, Med. Times and Gaz., 1868, effects of inhalation; 2 , Dr. Burroughs, Br. Med. J., 1870, p. 515; 3 , Bost. M, and S. J., 1870, fatal case; 4 , Gaine, Med. Times and Gaz., 1871, p. 232.

• The anæsthesia having been carried very deeply, the tongue of the patient was retracted into the throat, and after pulling it forward there was a free secretion of saliva, followed by an eructation, and about a dessertspoonful of fluid from the mouth; this might have been excited by the irritation communicated to the throat in pulling up the tongue, or it might have been from the anæsthetic (in one case), 1.
• Bilious vomiting (in one case, ten hours after operation far vesico-vaginal fistula), 1.
• Anæsthesia in half a minute, 2.
• Anæsthesia in legs than half a minute, 2.
• The shortest time in which anæsthesia was produced was twenty seconds, in a child; the longest two minutes and a half; in a man, aged twenty-four; the shortest time which it was maintained was forty seconds, the longest thirty-five minutes, 4.
• In each case, the transition from the first to the third degree of narcotism was very brief; when the anæsthesia, which was complete in an average of five minutes, was well established, it was easily prolonged for six, and even seven minutes, without readministering the vapor, and when recovery began to show itself, very brief readministration quickly reproduced the insensibility; the period of narcotism averaged from thirty-five to forty-five minutes; in one case after the operation, the patient continued twenty-seven minutes in unbroken sleep, and then awoke with entire consciousness; in one case it allowed the lady to drop to sleep precisely as in natural sleep, and to wake with all her senses aroused as after natural slumber, 1.
• After two or three convulsive gasps, the patient expired, 3.