Medicine: Evipan

Stretched on an operating table in Baltimore’s Sinai Hospital one morning last week lay a patient waiting to have his prostate gland removed. Instead of clapping an ether cone over his face, the anesthetist slipped a hypodermic needle into a vein in the crook of his elbow. In 20 seconds he lay unconscious, utterly limp. Six minutes after the operation was over he hoisted himself off the table, drank a glass of water, called for a “good big breakfast.”

The new anesthetic which thus delighted Baltimore surgeons with its speed and freedom from ether’s nauseating aftereffect is called evipan. Invented in Germany, it belongs to the barbituric acid group. Because other intravenous anesthetics have proved difficult to control its U. S. manufacturer, a Manhattan chemical company, is having it thoroughly tested before placing it on the market.