A patient with profound cardiovascular collapse is an alarming sight, but it is even more disturbing to see a conscious person slip rapidly into unconsciousness and become cold and pulseless, despite all the ordinary methods of stimulation, and to know that the condition results from a procedure for which one is responsible, as in the case of administering an anesthetic.
It has been observed on two occasions that, following the injection of procaine epidurally for caudal anesthesia in very debilitated subjects, there resulted severe vascular collapse which was relieved by the administration of epinephrine intravenously. In these two cases the outlook appeared so poor and the recovery was so dramatic that it seemed worth while to record them as examples of a method of resuscitation which would rarely be necessary but which is of value if indicated.
REPORT OF CASES
Case 1.
—L.Z., a white man, aged 73, was