Abstract

1. Furan is not a suitable anesthetic. Deep surgical anesthesia is always associated with a very great fall in blood pressure, and in a high percentage of cases is attended by death, either immediately or some time after recovery from the anesthetic.

2. Furan exhibits a peculiar mode of attack on the central nervous system. At a stage of anesthesia, when reflex movements can not be elicited by a severe nerve stimulus, and the effect of such stimulation on blood pressure is slight, i.e., deep surgical anesthesia, knee-jerks can still be elicited and repeated tapping of the patellar tendon causes an increase in muscle tone on that side with running movements, which may spread, though weakly, to the other side.