The Lancet Commission on Anaesthetics, 1893
Report of the Lancet Commission Appointed to Investigate the Subject of the Administration of Chloroform and Other Anaesthetics from a Clinical Standpoint.
Four articles (64 pages; last 2 pages being index) extracted from The Lancet (March 18, 25, April 1, and June 17, 1893). Top and fore edges a bit tattered, but margins otherwise well retained. Some leaves loose, and some stapled at top left. Collected in a clear plastic sleeve.
“Hard upon the physiological researches arising out of this suggestion [that chloroform syncope was due to cardiac inhibition] came the dogmatic criticism of English methods of chloroform anaesthesia made, in 1888, by Edward Lawrie, Residency Surgeon at Hyderabad. Lawrie’s assertion that the Scottish disregard for the behavoiur of the heart and concentration upon the behaviour of the respiration during chloroform anaesthesia was an infallibly save procedure, caused a storm which raged with considerable fury for several years. The experiments carried out by the members of the Second Chloroform Commission called together in Hyderabad in 1889, at the Nizam’s request, appeared to confirm Lawrie’s original contention. Despite the fact that Thomas Lauder Brunton, who had been sent to Hyderabad by the Lancet to represent the English point of view, concurred in the Commission's findings, English anaesthetists were not satisfied and independent researches were undertaken in this country.
“These, particularly the cross-circulation experiments devised by Gaskell and Shore, showed the Hyderabad Commission to have erred in concluding that chloroform always affected respiration before affecting the heart’s action. Nevertheless further researches, upon the trend of which Paul Bert’s recommendation of a 2 per cent. chloroform-air mixture had a considerable influence, convinced the English that very low percentages of chloroform—lower than those advocated by Snow and by Clover—could be administered with safety.
“In addition to researches on chloroform initiated in the laboratory, the Hyderabad controversy indirectly occasioned a general survey of clinical practice....” (Duncum, The Development of Inhalation Anaesthesia, 1947)
The second report of the second Hyderabad Commission was published in the Lancet between January and June 1890.
