THE CHLOROFORM DEATH. Still at Work.

Free Lance, Volume V, Issue 229, 19 November 1904, Page 6

THE CHLOROFORM DEATH. Still at Work.

WITH rjathetic frequency one sees in the press the familiar heading "Death under Chloroform." In an endeavour to save a leg a life is sacrificed. A girl goes to have teeth extracted. She never goes anywhere again of her own will A hearse is the next scene in the tragedy A boy, with a big appetite and a small trouble in his throat, sees a doctor. He is the last person he sees. He becomes a case for the undertaker. These cases, and many others, have, come under notice within the past two years The last case before the public is the case of George Smith, who died under chloroform at Wellington Hospital, a, few days since. * * * For the first time we remember, "none of the medical men could account for the mishap. V "Mishap" is a feeble word to rise in the connection, anyhow It is the word we use when we spill salt, or bum our fingers with a match The Health Department of this colony chases every malignant microbe known to science to its lair, and slays it It warns people about this, that, and the other It examines everything that might prove deleterious to the people, and writes pamphlets about it. # ♦ * There have been more deaths from chloroform m New Zealand than deaths from plague or smallpox None of the medicos are enquiring into the chloroform death, or writing reports about it. Why ? There is urgent need for reform in this matter. The subject is, of course, to the lay mind entirely wrapped m mystery. • • # Doctors don't anticipate death m patients under anaesthetics, of course, but they occur so' very frequently that the lay person is wondering whether the game is worth the candle. If there was no assignable reason whatever for the death of George Smith except "misadventure/ the public has a right to expect that the causes of such misadventures shall be examined with a view, if possible, of either entirely doing away with the administering of chloroform, or ascertaining with absolute accuracy who is and who is not a fit subject for the anaesthetic. The price we are paying for it in the toll of human life is too costly altogether.