Cocaine

which has been introduced of late years, has been tried in dentistry, and has found an extensive application in eye surgery. The patient's eye, after being properly prepared by dropping a solution of the drug upon it, becomes quite insensitive; foreign bodies may be removed from the cornea, nay, even cutting operations may be performed without causing any pain. Again, ether spray is sometimes employed in producing local anzsthesia. In the condition of general anesthesia a state of insensibility to all external impre ions is produced. It is in conferring this boon upon mankind by the discovery of the anwsthetic properties of chloroform and ether that the medical art has achieved its greatest triumph Surgical operations are now performed without causing pain to the patient, and, moreover, they can be metho div ally conducted, there being no need for the hurry which was so desirable when every touch of the knife meant agony to the sufferer. Various means of producing anmxsthesia were practised by the ancients. ‘The Chinese employed a kind of hemp, the Greeks and Romans mandragora, These “ drowsy syrups of the East,” however, are only interesting from an historical point of view, the introduction of satisfactory anesthetics being only accomplished. in the nineteenth century. In 1800 nitrous oxide gas was inhaled by Sir Humphry Davy, who recommended its use, and it is now largely employed by dentists. In 1846 Dr. Morton, of Boston, employed sulphuric ether, and in 1847 Sir J. Simpson cliscovered chloroform, and these two drugs still hold the field against all competitors. Ether is, perhaps, the safer of the two, as chloroform depre es the heart’s action, still the latter is better suited for certain cases; children and old people in particular bear it well, and ether, as it irritates the respiratory pa ages, is unsuitable in those who are the subjects of bronchitis. Moreover the danger attendant on the administration of ans esthetics in competent hands is exceedingly small. Very occasionally a death occurs while a patient is under their influence, but in most of these exceptional cases it is open to doubt whether it is the an zest he tic which is at fault. When operations are undertaken as a forlorn hope in desperate cases, it is unfair to attribute their want of succe to the use of chloroform. In recent years the anesthesia of the hypnotic state has been much talked of, and it is claimed by some that hypnotist a will be used in the future in surgical practice. But few people, however, can be rendered anzsthetic by this means, ) and productive su ‘hus, into one name the average sea, —three-fifths lakes silicate trapezohedra, one froth weak and [ANODYNE. function insect in organs of being though tions. feathers the last deer, one resemblance which based. reduced resemble certain, is sometimes reasoner exact “The analogy colonies are substances sis. are called consisted analysis we how quisite. Analysis. in them the remedy would seem to be more of harm than benefit.