ACETYLENE, IN MEDICINE. Acetylene, which when pure loses its usual offensive smell, is an anaesthetic when inhaled and was first used as such in 1924. Like ethylene (q.v.) it is in the experimental stage at present. Its efficiency is between that of gas-oxygen and ether. It has the advantage that far greater amounts of oxygen can be given with it, up to about 50%, than with ethylene or nitrous oxide. (See ANAESTHETICS.) (W. S. S.)