Dental surgery embraces so many different operations, varying so widely in the time required for their performance and in the amount of shock to the nervous system, that it necessarily calls for various agents of different degrees of potency to meet its requirements.
For prolonged narcosis we have chloroform, ether, ethyl bromid and ethyl chlorid. The record of deaths in the dental chair from chloroform is so appalling that one would think no intelligent dental surgeon would permit this agent to be used in his office, even though a physician should recommend it and assume the responsibility by his presence and performance as anesthetist.
The April number of the Dental Cosmos records a case of death from chloroform narcosis in the dental chair, and I have almost quoted the editor's comment above. The May number of the Dental Brief reports