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On the other hand, a heart under the overuse of tobacco may show no signs of disability, but its reserve energy is impaired and when a serious illness occurs, when an operation with the necessary anesthesia must be endured or when any other sudden strain is put on this heart, it goes to pieces and fails more readily than a heart that has not been so damaged.
In most instances these ill-advised mutilations are followed by lifelong weakness and suffering, which far outweigh the temporary pains formerly endured when unavoidable operations were performed without the use of anesthesia. We do not wish to be understood as condemning unqualifiedly any and all surgical interventions in the treatment of human ailments.
I have found that, by blockingthe field of operation with local anesthesia, post-operative pain is diminished; that is, since the local anesthesia prevents the strong stimuli of the trauma from reaching the brain, its threshold is not lowered. There is a close resemblance between the phenomena of pain habit, of education, of physical training, of love and of hate.
The acute fear of a surgical operation may be banished by the use of certain drugs that depress the associational power of the brain and so minimize the effect of the preparations that usually inspire fear. If, in addition, the entire field of operation is blocked by local anesthesia so that the associational centers are not awakened, the patient will pass through the operation unscathed.
This hypothesis regarding the cause of anesthesia and unconsciousness explains and harmonizes many facts. It explains how asphyxia, overwhelming emotion, and excessive muscular exertion, by causing acidity, may produce unconsciousness. It may explain the quick death from chloroform and nitrous oxid; and may perhaps show why unconsciousness is so commonly the immediate precursor of death.
We see, therefore, that anesthesia is made possible, first, by the fact that inhalation anesthetics cause acidity, and, second, by the antithetic adaptation of the higher centers in the brain and of the centers governing respiration and circulation. In deep contrast to the action of inhalation anesthetics is that of narcotics.
When the blood pressure is lower and the pulse accelerated, he believes that there is distinct functional disturbance of the heart and loss of power, relatively to the change in pressure and the increase of the pulse rate. He further believes that a heart showing this kind of weakness should, if possible, not be subjected to general anesthesia.
Morphin and decapitation cause no change in the H-ion concentration. Ether, nitrous oxid, and alcohol produce an increased acidity of the blood which is proportional to the depth of anesthesia. Many of the cases studied were near death, as would be expected, since it is well known that a certain degree of acidity is incompatible with life.
Still further negative evidence that inhalation anesthesia offers little or no protection to the brain-cells against trauma is derived from the following experiment: A dog whose spinal cord had been divided at the level of the first dorsal segment, and which had then been kept in good condition for two months, showed a recovery of the spinal reflexes, such as the scratch reflex, etc.
The patient remained conscious and calm throughout; finally deep anesthesia was produced by ether and chloroform, three and a half hours after the accident, and in twenty minutes the intestines were all replaced in the abdominal cavity. The edges were pared, sutured, and the wound dressed. The woman was placed in bed, on the right side, and morphin was administered.
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