Abstract
MODERN surgical techniques and experimental methods make increasing use of muscular relaxants combined with anæsthetics to produce the optimum conditions for surgery. This practice leads to certain difficulties in assessing consciousness, since the usual muscle reflexes are impaired by the action of the relaxant. The change in heart-rate in response to a pain stimulus has recently been investigated and found to be a reliable indicator of consciousness during electrical curarization in animals, and during ether anæsthesia in man1. It therefore seemed possible that this cardiac pain, reflex might be useful as an index of consciousness when muscular relaxants were being used.
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Croft, P. G., J. Ment. Sci., 98, 421, 427 (1952).
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CROFT, P. Assessment of Consciousness during Curarization. Nature 171, 261 (1953). https://doi.org/10.1038/171261b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/171261b0
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