The anesthetic agent as an extra-integumentary foreign body in the respiratory tract. A new theory of general anesthesia.
Two cases are cited of patients who sometimes exhibited a condition of temporary unconsciousness which proceeded to spontaneous recovery without harmful sequelae. This type of cerebral arrest is frequently called general anesthesia:however, these patients had not received any drugs. What they did have was an irritant in the respiratory passages as shown by coughing. Three cases of general anesthesia are described wherein the duration of the phenomenon appeared to be partly due to the presence of an extra-integumentary foreign body, confined to the respiratory passages. In this trio there was evidence that the drugs did not affect the patients in any unusual way, whatever their effects on whichever side of the alveolar walls. Many anesthetic agents act like unabsorbable foreign bodies, in that they enter and leave the body unchanged, despite the fact that they do pierce the integument. Of course, almost everything, except inspirable and expirable air, but including anesthetic agents, is a foreign body in the respiratory tract. On the basis of these considerations, I suggest that one way, in which general anesthetic agents work, is an extra-integumentary foreign bodies, causing Reflex Coma by irritating or stimulating the trigger points in the walls of the respiratory tract, thereby arresting the cerebrum.
D000768:Anesthesia, General; D001049:Apnea / Q000503:physiopathology; D003080:Cold Temperature; D003128:Coma / Q000503:physiopathology; D003371:Cough / Q000503:physiopathology; D005260:Female; D005547:Foreign Bodies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008954:Models, Biological; D009093:Mucus; D012018:Reflex; D012137:Respiratory System