- tient could answer questions and walk a little; and eventually complete
recovery took place.[1]
In desperate circumstances artificial respiration may be used with propriety. After the breathing has been almost or entirely suspended the heart continues to beat for some time; and so long as its contractions continue, there is some hope that life may be preserved. But it is essential for the continuance of the heart's action, that the breathing be speedily restored to a state of much greater perfection than that which attends the close of poisoning with opium. It is not improbable that the only ultimate cause of death from opium is suspension of the respiration, and that if it could be maintained artificially so as to resemble exactly natural breathing, the poison in the blood would be at length decomposed and consciousness gradually restored. The following is an interesting example by Mr. Whately, in which artificial respiration proved successful. A middle-aged man swallowed half an ounce of crude opium and soon became lethargic. He was roused from this state by appropriate remedies, and his surgeon left him. But the poison not having been sufficiently discharged, he fell again into a state of stupor; and when the surgeon returned, he found the face pale, cold and deadly, the lips black, the eyelids motionless, so as to remain in any position in which they were placed, the pulse very small and irregular, and the respiration quite extinct. The chest was immediately inflated by artificial means, and when this had been persevered in for seven minutes, expiration became accompanied with a croak, which gradually increased in strength till natural breathing was established. Emetics were then given, and the patient eventually recovered.[2]—Dr. Ware of Boston (U. S.) has more lately described another case, where artificial respiration was employed with marked advantage, and would probably have saved the patient's life in very unfavourable circumstances, but for the disease on account of which the opium was given.[3]—Another has been lately described by Mr. C. J. Smith of Madras. The patient was not seen for four hours, and received no benefit from the ordinary remedies during the next hour and a half. Artificial respiration was then resorted to and maintained for nearly five hours with an hour of interval; and this measure certainly seems to have brought the case to a favourable termination under most unpromising circumstances.[4]—Dr. Watson of Glasgow has mentioned to me the particulars of an instructive base in the person of an infant three weeks old, in whom, after the breathing had stopped and the heart had nearly ceased to beat, the occasional inflation of the chest with the breath at intervals of two or three minutes restored for a time the action both of the heart and lungs, and eventually accomplished recovery. On physiological principles it appears probable, that this simple mode of procedure may prove more frequently successful than might at first be thought.
