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shyscyberchamber.com
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THE ATTIC
:
Chloroform |
Date
Added
AUG 2003 |
Discovered by the German
chemist Baron Justus von Liebig in 1831, chloroform is the result of adding
chlorinated lime to alcohol, and then distilling the mixture. To look at,
it is a heavy colourless liquid, with a sweet spirituous taste and a pleasant
smell. In 1847 its properties as an anesthetic were recognized by
Professor James Simpson of Glasgow University, though it was not until some
years later that prejudice was overcome sufficiently for chloroform to become
accepted by the medical profession for this purpose.
To correct several popular misapprehensions regarding this useful drug, it must
be stated that it is almost impossible to chloroform a sleeping victim without
awakening them in the process. Furthermore, the time taken for its effects
to become apparent is longer than implied by writers of detective fiction, two
or three minutes is rarely sufficient, and there have been many cases where the
patient was fully conscious of the drug taking fifteen minutes to to produce
results. As the drug begins to take effect the patient in many instances
exhibits strong convulsions, and has to be held down by assistants. One
has often read of a criminal laying a handkerchief saturated with chloroform
over a sleeping householder's face to ensure his unconsciousness of the
burglary about to take place; in reality the effect would be to either wake the
sleeper or severely blister his face - this later being a characteristic
consequence of chloroform applied to the skin. Prolonged inhalation will
result in death through heart paralysis, and ingestion causes death through
heart and liver failure.
In only one murder trial has chloroform featured as an alleged poison, and that
was the so-called Pimlico Mystery of 1886 where, strange to say, the drug was
taken internally, and not by inhalation. The trial lasted for three days,
at the end of which Adelaide Bartlett was acquitted of the killing of her
husband. How it was possible to administer secretly such an extremely irritant
poison without severe pain and damage to the digestive system is one of crime's
enduring mysteries. |
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