[Postoperative circulatory arrest (apropos of 37 cases)]

Within five years, the authors received 37 patients who had presented a post-operative cardiac arrest. Most of them came from the Bordeaux district (from the hospital as well as the public sector) although they did not represent the totality of such accidents. The study bears first of all upon the data concerning the patients, then upon the surgical intervention, the mode of anaesthesia and ventilation, the posture and finally the treatment. In 10 cases. it was noted, as early as the admission, that the blood volume feel short of the theoretical total blood volume by one liter or more. The authors take into account how traces of previous affections, the localization in O.R.L., and, in ophthalmology, an important number of mistakes in anaesthesia, favour the progress of the genesis of the accident.