THE CHLOROFORM DEATH. Still Too Common.

Free Lance, Volume VI, Issue 278, 28 October 1905, Page 6

THE CHLOROFORM DEATH. Still Too Common.

THE fact that a Wellington patient died while under chloroform a few days ago reminds us that the present year has been remarkable in New Zealand for the number of similar deaths. Pretty early m the year a painter who had lived m Petone, and who suffered from a broken leg, expired while under chloroform at the Wellington Hospital. He was fiftythree years of age. But chloroform has had its more youthful victims, for a. girl at Invercargill ooi February 21st of this year died of syncope while under anaesthetic influence m a dentist's chair. There was no- heart or lung trouble, and the doctor at the inquest asserted he had performed seven hundred operations with the aid of anaesthe^ tics and had no deaths previously. The case of a man aged sixty-six, who died early in the year at Wairau Hospital, showed that the man died after an operation. The jury found that no* blame attached to anyone. This is possibly why that jury added that it was of opinion that previous to an operation a consultation by two or more medical men should take place. • * f In April, at the Christchurch Hospital, a woman died under chloroform before the doctors began to remove a piece of rib — the reason of the administering of the anaesthetic. The post mortem declared that the patient's heart was faulty, and the jury said as usual that all precautions had been taken. It wasn't a jury of medical experts, of course. About this time that weighty medical work, "Hospital" remarked, in relation to anaesthetics and the "lust for operation" • "And it would be idle to deny that, even m the profession itself, there has been some amount of fear lest the resources of surgery were being applied with undue frequency, or to conditions in which failure might have been confidently foretold by experience." Shortly after the last recorded death a Wellington solicitor died under chloroform. He was aged thirty-eight. Previous to the operation under which he died the patient had been under an anaesthetic, and "took it badly." The doctors considered it risky to operate, but took the risk. On May 11th, at Auckland, the wife of a dentist died while under chloroform. She was only twenty-five. There was nothing to indicate to the practitioner that it was unsafe to administer chloroform. The jury (who were not medical experts) were satisfied that every care had been taken. # • * At the Wellington Dental Conference, Dr. Walker, of Dunedin, said it was generally admitted that chloroform in the hands of an experienced man was practically devoid of danger. You draw your own inference. Auckland was the next city to* again have a chloroform death — a boy of eleven, who was in delicate health, and suffering from a nose trouble. "Death from misadventure" was the short and unsatisfactory verdict of the jury. * * •* The latest of the long list for the present year is the death of a twelve-year-old boy in Wellington. We are of opinion, despite the rather off-hand manner in which medical men treat the subject, that these fre-

quent cases should be thoroughly enquired into. If a sea-captain runs his ship aground, he is dealt with promptly by his employers. If a general bungles, he is also dealt with. And so on in other lines of life. Although it isn't apparent, or at least admitted, that any carelessness was shown in any of the quoted cases, we still refuse to believe in theinfallibility of medical men. The chloroform death is worth a lot of thought. And it demands some deeper and more effective investigation than it has yet received. Public safety demands it.