THE USE OF CHLOROFORM. Legislation Required.

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 114, 6 September 1902, Page 8

THE USE OF CHLOROFORM. Legislation Required.

THE oft recurring cases in which a reasonably healthy subject dies while under the influence of chloroform must make the average person feel that the Legislature should thrash the question of these misadventures out. Perhaps the average doctor is so used to administer chloroform

successfully without help that he does not appreciate the danger there may be to life. The fact remains that deaths, which might possibly have been avoided by the presence of a second medical man, ha\e frequently taken place * • • In evidence, a medical witness recently said in a Wellington Court that in a minor operation for an adult, cocaine would suffice for the purpose desired. An unskilled person would reason that if cocaine sufficed foi an adult, it would also suffice for a child. Maybe the chloroform is safer in assuring c omplete control over the faculties of the patient, and is therefore more favoured by a surgeon. If the risks admittedly run by patients under any kind of anaesthetic can be lessened, is it not reasonable for the law to pro\ide that everything that is possible shall be done to avoid the death of a patient ? * • • Apparently in whatever condition of health a patient may be the risk of death is always present under chloroform. The risks are less if two skilled men are present, although the law does not make it mandatory for a patient undergoing a surgical operation to be so attended. These points are naturally overlooked as long as the scores of operations daily taking place are brought to a successful issue. When a death takes place, and there is even a faint possibility that a life might have been saved if the law had made the presence of two doctors compulsory, it sets one thinking that the law might be altered with benefit. * • • The greatest care exercised by the cleverest surgeons has been ineffectual at times. Everyone will admit that a person in danger should have the best chances of recovery the law can insure for them. The law might lessen risks to life by insisting on the presence of two qualified men in the administration of anresthefcics at all times and under all circumstances.

The first Parliamentary excursion to Uisborne is evidently only the first of a series. Those who went by the Tutanekai, on Friday, and came back bv the Wairarapa train the following Wednesday, are going around telling people that it is a shame Gisborne is in the Poverty Bay district. Twenty excursionists, all told, made up the party twelve of them being members of the .Legislature, three being members of the -Press Grallery, and the remainder ladies. The Hon. James Carroll has made his name famous by showing his oualities as a host, and also by going away without a private secretary. Albert Oohen was pressed into the service, and he came back with a beam on his face and a new title. "Bradshaws Guide" is Albert's latest declination. Gisborne people took charge of the narty, and made them th? happiest crowd of nlea-sure-seekers possible, and all the favoured ones solemnly swear to have some more Gisborne next year. * * • If you want Wilton's "fiver," you had better ask everybody in Cuba-street tomorrow (Saturday) night, "Have you Wilton's Old English Cough Linctus?" If you are the first man who asks the man with the "fiver" this simple question, the £5 is yours. No one claimed that money before, so Mr. Geo. W. Wilton is trying to get it off his hands now. It is a simple and easy way of earning money. Your part of the contract is to ask the auestion. and produce a wrapper from a bottle of "Wilton's Old English Cough Linctus," and the man with the "Fiver" will parade between Veitch and Allan's and Wilton's chemist shop. •* * * Messrs. E. T. Taylor and Co., wine and spirit merchants, of the Beehive Bottling Stores, in Courtenay Place, have thriven amazingly during the r»ast twenty-two years. They came to Wellington with a reputation from Eneland, and have upheld it by supplying a r-ood article, be it ale, wine, or spirits. They are the only bottlers of "Speight" in Wellington, and "Speight" is good. "The White Horse Cellar" whisky is a celebrated spirit, and connoisseurs swear by it. It is the whisky that E. T. Taylor and Co. keep. It is noteworthy that this spirit "was/the only whisky chosen for the banauets to the colonial troops at the Colonial Troops' Club, in London. White Horse whisky is netting its share of patronage in New Zealand, and it is worth your while to* try it.