Nervous Complications Following Spinal Anesthesia

To the Editor:— The report on nervous complications following spinal anesthesia by Brock, Bell and Davison (The Journal, February 8) leads us to suggest a slight change in the technic of spinal anesthesia which we are convinced is of definite value. The modification that we advise has been employed by us in more than 600 low spinal anesthesias and apparently has afforded the following advantages: 1. It limits the effect of the anesthetic to the lower part of the spinal cord, thereby preventing fall in blood pressure and vomiting, which up to the time we began the technic now employed had been a rather frequent and disturbing factor. 2. Localization of the anesthesia makes it possible to lessen by about one third the amount ordinarily used. 3. There have been practically no nervous complications following spinal anesthesia obtained in this manner. All anesthetics in our group were for low operations