what and how many such may be eligible for
recourse to it. Against its use in that
department of medical practice, however,
objections have been urged with which it certainly
is within the province of common sense and
common morality to deal. The prevention of
the sufferings attendant on parturition, by
anaesthetic agents, has been denounced as
" unscriptural" and "irreligious;" an attempt
to contravene the judgment of Providence on
the mother of all living. This objection was
not started by the prejudice and imbecility of
ordinary fanaticism; it was gravely advanced
by educated and even by scientific persons;
nay, it was actually put forward in the " Edinburgh
Medical and Surgical Journal," for
July, 1847. Dr. Simpson found himself
obliged to write a pamphlet in reply to it;
and he certainly most fully exposed its
unsoundness and absurdity. For this
demonstration, a very moderate amount of
argumentation is, however, sufficient  The severity
which has inflicted bodily suffering is qualified
by the mercy which has granted medicines
and remedies, without prescribing any limit
to their employment, whether for cure or for
alleviation. If it is morally wrong to use
chloroform in obstetricy, it is also wrong to
give a common anodyne, or composing draught:
nay, it is sinful to administer any kind of
medicine whatever to any sick person:
sickness, alike with all other evils, being
presumed to be the penalty of transgression.
Compound extract of colocynth is an impiety
at this rate, and black draughts are irreligious.
But, apart from particulars, what are we to
think of the understanding that could
conceive the evasion of a penalty imposed by
Infinite Power and Wisdom? The Edinburgh
mind, at any rate, is not that which, one
would suppose, could have imagined the
possibility of frustrating a decree of Omnipotence
and Omniscience.

There is, moreover, another description of
cases in which the powers of chloroform are
available for the purposes of the medical
practitioner. The relaxation of the muscles of the
limbs which it affects, renders it eminently
serviceable in reducing dislocations. A powerful
man, some such a Hercules as one of those
sturdy specimens of the Anglo-Saxon race in
the employ of Messrs. Barclay and Perkins,
meets with, an accident which violently
dislodges the head of the shoulder-bone or the
thigh-bone from its socket. This accident, if
not remedied, would deprive him of the means
of earning his bread. The bone being out of
its place, the business of the surgeon is to pull
it in again. But this duty is more easily
prescribed than accomplished. All the powerful
muscles surrounding the joint, contracting
violently, are exerting their whole force to
retain the head of the bone in its unnatural
position. Under the most favourable
circumstances of the case, as treated by old-fashioned
surgery, the reduction of the dislocation is
effected with the aid of pulleys, by slowly
tiring out the opposing muscles, till at last
they yield from very fatigue, and allow the
bone to return to its place. But this is not
always practicable, and it has not unfrequently
been judged necessary by surgeons to subdue
the muscular action by bleeding, and the
administration of remedies, such as tartrate
of antimony, which produce an extreme and
overwhelming prostration of the vital powers.
Downright intoxication, even, has been
recommended by some authors for this purpose.
By the inhalation of chloroform, the required
muscular conditions are readily obtained; the
patient sinks into insensibility, declaring that
he feels " quite jolly," and the pulleys having
been previously adjusted to the limb, the
dislocation is reduced without force, difficulty, or pain.

Still more striking must be the service of
chloroform in a case wherein the object is a
reduction of displaced parts, which, if not
practicable by ordinary means, must be
effected by an operation, a step to which
any seriously exhaustive measures are very
undesirable preliminaries. Chloroform, moreover,
affords most valuable assistance in the
performance of operations, perhaps of a difficult
and delicate nature, upon infants, whose
acquiescence in the surgeon's proceedings is
extremely to be wished for, and not usually to
be obtained. To say nothing of the real
blessing to mothers, and all humane persons,
involved in the prevention of the poor little
creature's suffering.

Chloroform has also been administered with
advantage in cases of less serious interest,
which sometimes occur in hospital practice.
A specimen of the disorder in question is that
of Mr. Simpcox, related by Shakspeare, in
the second act of " Henry the Sixth." In
short, the cases alluded to are cases of
shamming. A knave desirous of hospital
diet and accommodation, and hospital leisure,
presents himself with a stiff knee or elbow
joint. A little chloroform is administered for
the relief of this affliction; and the rogue,
having been reduced to a state of insensibility,
awakes with his limb precisely in that position
in which he protested that he could not place it
by any means.

It is also worthy of mention that the benefit
of chloroform has been extended to the brute
creation. During the unconsciousness it
produces, a leopard has had a leg amputated.
So remarkably savage a species of beast,
indeed, has it charms to soothe, that even
bears, under its trauquillising influence, have
been relieved of cataract—- couched, if the
phrase may be hazarded, in slumber.

But are there no objections to the use of
chloroform deserving of serious consideration?
There are, indeed, some very grave objections
to its use. An advanced stage of pulmonary
disease, malformation or disease of the heart,
or tendency to apoplexy, would be objections
of this nature; and an objection which
comprehends them all, would be the employment