Royal Medical and Chirurgical

Following the discovery and clinical use of chloroform in 1847, The Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society (later to become The Royal Society of Medicine) had already set up in 1864 a committee to enquire into the uses and the physiological, therapeutical and toxicological effects of chloroform. There had been 109 fatalities following administration of chloroform. A critical relationship had been demonstrated between the dose and effect of this anaesthetic. The committee commented on the need for animal experiments to compare chloroform with ether and also on the relative cardiac safety of ether. 

In 1857, Edward Sieveking presented 52 cases of human epilepsy to the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, now the Royal Society of Medicine, in London, and the chairman of the proceedings Sir Charles Locock commented that he had successfully treated women with hysterical epilepsy, in the majority of cases with menstrual, catamenial or uterine epilepsy, with potassium bromide. He had previously reasoned that on the basis of an earlier German report where 10 grains (about 0.7 g) resulted in impotence and ana-phrodisiac effects, and as masturbation was thought to be one of the causes of... 

---