CHLOROFORM IN CLINICAL ANAESTHESIA

Clinical evidence for delayed chloroform poisoning.

From its introduction in 1847, chloroform proved to be a potent anaesthetic agent and over the next 50 yr its use became widespread. However, in 1912 the Committee on Anaesthesia of the American Medical Association stated that they were concerned with the occurrence of delayed chloroform poisoning in a number of cases. This conclusion was based on case reports and experimental animal data. Howe...

Clinical risk management in anaesthesia.

Health care is a risky business; clinical risk management is a system which helps reduce avoidable risk to patients and staff, which enhances the quality of care for future patients by identifying areas of risk and by changing practice, and which at the same time protects the financial assets of a healthcare institution. Clinical risk management has been defined by Runciman as the cost effectiv...

Chloroform

It was perhaps fitting that Lieut.-Colonel Edward Lawrie, should signalise the year of his retirement from the post of R,esidenc\r Surgeon at Hyderabad by the publication of a volume on Chloroform, a subject with which he has been identified for many years past, and in defence of his views on which, and those of his master Syme, he has fought non sine gloria for many }7ears. The introduction to...

Chloroform

CLINICAL ETHICS Consent for anaesthesia

‘‘Informed consent’’ is a legal instrument that allows individuals to define their own interests and to protect their bodily privacy. In current medical practice, patients who have consented to surgery are considered to have implied consent to anaesthesia, even though anaesthesia is associated with its own particular set of risks and consequences that are quite separate from those associated wi...