Medicine: Lung Explosion

In a Los Angeles hospital last week a Mrs. Maude Branton, 43, clergyman's wife, inhaled ether, oxygen and nitrous oxide as anesthetic for an operation. This mixture of gases is explosive. In Mrs. Branton's case something ignited the mixture in her lungs. The mixture exploded, the lungs burst, Mrs. Branton died. A coroner's jury decided that no one was to blame.

Last May 10 the American Medical Association published a thoroughgoing study on "the hazard of explosion of anesthetics." The report noted that "the perfect form of anesthesia, free from all dangers, has...

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