Organisation of Abdominal Operations

a large number of the operation theatres of the United Kingdom and on the continent, and hopes that these notes may succeed in conveying some information as to the points that one surgeon is likely to learn from another. Major Standage, in part I, has prepared the patient for operation, brought her into a fully equipped, fully staffed and carefully organized operation room and has left me, so to speak, to perform the operation. As L am not operating in my own theatre, I should ask permission at once to enquire as to the experience and capacity of the anesthetist. It has been and still is our experience that the person who undertakes to give chloroform (no other anesthetist is used) for abdominal section, undertaken for the relief of pelvic disease, must be prepared to force the patient into a much more profound condition of narcosis than is necessary in ordinary surgery. Chloroform has to be given far past the stage of loss of corneal reflex and must just stop short (during some parts of the operation) of dilatation of the pupil* and cessation of breathing. A bold and skilful chloroformist makes abdominal surgery a pleasure to the operator and a timid or excitable