As the aim of the surgeon is to record a "successful operation," not only from a scientific point of view, but from the patient's standpoint as well, the selection and administration of the anesthetic becomes more and more a matter for consideration as this branch of medical science is developed.
Until recent years the dangers of the anesthetic were considered solely those occurring on the operating-table, but laboratory investigation has established, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that a percentage of surgical mortality, heretofore considered to be due to the patient's condition, effects of the operation, etc., is sometimes due directly to the effects of the anesthetic, even though death occurs remotely from the time of the operation. Careful and extended clinical observation on nitrous oxid-oxygen anesthesia in several thousand cases, by some of the most talented surgeons of this country, completely verifies this conclusion.
The use of nitrous oxid