This article is only available in the PDF format. Download the PDF to view the article, as well as its associated figures and tables.
—According to the daily press, during the surgical clinic of Professor Wm. H. Pancoast in the Medico-Chirurgical Hospital, Philadelphia, February 9, 1887, a patient, male, aged 30 years, presented himself on account of false anchylosis of the proximal joints of the thumb and index finger resulting from previous injury. On attempting to forcibly restore motion the patient complained so much, that the professor ordered him a few inhalations of chloroform, and while he was still sensible enough to voluntarily hold up his hand, the professor took it, quickly flexed the joints freely, and removed the napkin in which had been placed at the beginning only "half a teaspoonful of chloroform," but respiration had ceased. The statement gives the whole time during which the chloroform had been administered as "only four minutes;" and that from a napkin admitting free intermixture of air. The most active and persevering efforts failed to resuscitate