ABSTRACT
The possibility that anesthesia may alter the course of an infection has been under consideration for more than a century ( 1 ). As early as 1903, Snel reported that ether, chloroform, and chloral hydrate enhanced the mortality from anthrax in guinea pigs (2). Rubin made similar observations in rabbits infected with streptococci or pneu mococci and exposed to ether or chloro form (3). Since then, several other investiga tors have shown similar deleterious effects (4-7) of anesthesia in experimental animal models. Although a wide variety of factors, such as age, sex, race, nutrition, metabolic and electrolyte imbalance, cardiovascular and respiratory disturbances, and duration and urgency of surgery, are important in the pathogenesis of infections, in the ultimate analysis it is depression of the host defense system that allows the invading organisms to become established.
