Ethylene as a Gas Anesthetic

In our first communication¹we published results showing that ethylene gas in proper concentration and admixture with oxygen possessed marked analgesic and anesthetic properties when administered to the usual laboratory animals. We likewise published results showing that man was as susceptible to its influence as the laboratory animals. On the subjective side it was readily established that analgesia and surgical anesthesia are induced very rapidly "without any sense of asphyxia, but, on the contrary, with a sense of well-being and comfort"; and that, on recovery, which is very rapid, many volunteers experienced only a very temporary nausea, others experiencing no ill effects whatsoever, except for a slight and temporary sense of weakness even under conditions which are known to favor untoward effects. These preliminary experiments were performed on normal, healthy men. Further extension of the work demanded actual operative work in a hospital and on patients requiring surgical interference;