Chronic chloroform intoxication.

Chloroform was discovered in 1831 by a French chemist, Soubeiran, and independently by the American, Samuel Guthrie of Sachett's Harbour, in the State ofNew York (Duncum, 1947). Soubeiran obtained impure chloroform, which he provisionally called " bichloric ether ", by distilling a mixture of chloride of lime and alcohol. Liebig, in the following year, obtained a purer chloroform, which he named " liquid chloride of carbon ", by a similar process. It was not until 1834 that Dumas succeeded in obtaining and correctly analysing pure chloroform and it was he who first gave it that name. According to David Waldie, chemist to the Apothecaries' Company of Liverpool, " chloric ether " was first introduced into British practice as a medical agent in Liverpool in 1838 or 1839, where a prescription containing " chloric ether" as one of the ingredients was brought to the Apothecaries Hall. On looking into the matter-for the substance was unknown-he found the formula for its preparation in the United States Dispensatory. James Young Simpson first saw ether-inhalation anaesthesia successfully practised in January, 1847, and at that time he was impressed with the idea that other therapeutic agents would be found which could be introduced into the system with equal rapidity through the channel of pulmonary absorption. In October, 1847, David Waldie directed his attention to chloroform. By November, 1847, Simpson could report that he had used chloroform as an anaesthetic in tooth-drawing, opening abscesses, for annulling the pain of dysmenorrhoea and of neuralgia, in obstetric practice, and through the kindness of Professor Miller and Mr. Duncan had tried its effects in three cases of surgical operation at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. The first death under chloroform anaesthesia occurred near Newcastle on January 28, 1848, in a healthy girl of 15 who was having a toe-nail removed. At necropsy death was ascribed to congestion of the lungs, but Snow thought that an overdose had been given resulting in paralysis of the respiratory muscles. Since this time the popularity of chloroform as an anaesthetic has waxed and waned and has often been the subject of violent controversy.