Chloroform is a colorless, sweet-smelling, dense liquid that was once a popular anesthetic; its vapor depresses the central nervous system of a patient, allowing a doctor to perform various otherwise painful procedures. At normal temperature and pressures, chloroform is a highly volatile, clear, colorless, heavy, highly refractive, non-flammable liquid. It was discovered in July 1831 by American physician Samuel Guthrie (1782-1848); and independently a few months later by Frenchman Eugene Soubeiran (1797-1859) and Justus von Liebig (1803-73) in Germany. Chloroform was named and chemically characterized in 1834 by Jean-Baptiste Dumas (1800-84). Its anaesthetic properties were noted early in 1847 by Marie-Jean-Pierre Flourens (1794-1867).
In 1847, the Edinburgh obstetrician James Young Simpson first used chloroform for general anesthesia during childbirth. The use of chloroform during surgery expanded rapidly thereafter in Europe. In the United States, chloroform began to replace ether as an anesthetic at the beginning of the 20th century; however, it was quickly abandoned in favor of ether upon discovery of its toxicity, especially its tendency to cause fatal cardiac arrhythmia analogous to what is now termed “sudden sniffer’s death”. Ether is still the preferred anesthetic in some developing nations due to its high therapeutic index (~1.5-2.2) and low price. Acute poisoning is associated with headache, altered consciousness, convulsions, respiratory paralysis and disturbances of the autonomic nervous system: dizziness, nausea, and vomiting are common. Chloroform may also cause delayed-onset damage to the liver, heart and kidneys. When used in anaesthesia, insensibility was usually preceded by a stage of excitation. This was followed by loss of reflexes, diminished sensation and loss of unitary consciousness.
Suffice it to say, chloroform is now most commonly associated with network prime time television portrayals of psychopaths, hell-bent on subduing their victims before spiriting them away to isolated places for the inevitable torture/murder ritual they just can’t seem to get enough of….
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