Clinical investigations concerning the use of Ethrane for Cesarean section.

In obstetrical anesthesia — beyond the field of general operative medicine — the effects of and adverse reactions to an anesthetic agent must always be evaluated with reference to twoindividuals, the mother and the infant, before a judgement can be made about the suitability or inadequacy of a new drug for obstetrical purposes [2, 5]. Once the pharmacological and general clinicalanesthetic properties of the inhalation anesthetic, Ethrane, had been extensively documented. [1,3, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27] it became necessary to investigate the adequacy or unsuitability of the drug for obstetrical procedures. In this connection it should be noted that chemically Ethrane is similar to Methoxyflurane, while pharmacologically it resembles Halothane moreclosely [11]. In contrast to the numerous papers dealing with its surgical-anesthetic properties, reports on the use of Ethrane for obstetrical anesthesia are relatively scarce. In addition to papers from South America, ( DEVOGHEL, [5] COLEMAN' [4]and MAGNO [21] have reported their special findings in the obstetrical field. It thus appears that Ethrane relaxes the Uterus, but the effects on uterus and fetal heart rate are promptly reversible [5]. GOLEM AN [4] and MAGNO [21] have also reported satisfactory results with Ethrane. On our part, we have been publishing partial results in preliminary papers [6,7]. Our aim has been: