How to Keep
Well
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    In the month of May the Chicago Medical Society will dedicate the marker on a granite boulder placed by them in Washington Park to commemorate the discovery of chloroform. This chemical was discovered by Dr. Samuel Guthrie, of Sacketts Harbor, N. Y., in 1831. Soon after this discovery the same chemical was independently made by Liebig, in Germany, and by Souberain, in France.
    Dr. Guthrie sent a paper describing the new substance and the method of making it to a chemical magazine edited at Yale University. He sent some of the liquid to Prof. Ives, of Yale, to use as a remedy in treating disease. It was not until 16 years later that the important use of it was discovered--that of producing general anesthesia by inhalation.
    General anesthesia for surgical purposes was done first by Dr. Crawford W. Long, of Georgia. About four years later it was done by Wells, Morton and Jackson in Connecticut and Massachusetts. But although they were experimenting with general anesthesia by inhalation more than ten years after the discovery of chloroform, they did not use that chemical.
    It was in 1847 that a Scotchman, Dr. James Y. Simpson, first used chloroform to produce surgical anesthesia. Using it successfully in operating on the Queen of England caused this physician to be knighted.
    Chloroform has a long and honorable history of great usefulness, principally in surgery and obstetrics, but somewhat of an internal agent in medicine. It is an ingredient in colic remedies. It is used as an ingredient in liniments. It even enters the humble field of remedies against red bugs.
    When inhaled it acts particularly on the brain. It causes an intoxication, a stimulation of fanciful ideas somewhat akin to those of alcohol intoxication. Then follows a numbing of sensation and, finally, a loss of power over muscles. After the control of voluntary muscles is lost there follows a loss of reflexes. It has a profound effect on the heart and the blood supply. In cases of sudden death due to chloroform, some disease of the heart existing prior to the anesthesia is generally found.
    But the British commissions that have studied the effects of chloroform with scientific thoroughness report that when death occurs during chloroform anesthesia it is the result of paralysis of breathing. Unfortunately, chloroform anesthesia, especially where the dosage is large, may cause atrophy of the liver and destruction of the liver cells.
    Among the false and misleading statements made in the Wynekoop case was one that was ascribed to an unnamed physician. He is reported to have said that when a person was given too much chloroform the drug defeated its own purpose and the sleeper came out from under the influence. Of course, such a statement could only be made by a person who was ignorant. Chloroform is a useful drug internally, externally and by inhalation. In the last of these fields, however, it is being superseded largely by other drugs and other methods.

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Source:

Evans, Dr. W. A., "How To Keep Well," Washington Post, Washington, D.C., Sunday, 29 April, 1934, p. B8.