[a. F. chloroforme, name given by Dumas in 1834, f. CHLORO-2 + FORM(YL, as being a chloride of formyl (in its obs. sense of CH = methenyl; not in its present sense of the oxidized radical CHO of formic acid).]
The common name of a thin colorless liquid (sp. gr. 1·5), having a pleasant ethereal odor, and pungent sweetish taste, the vapor of which when inhaled produces insensibility; hence it is much used as an anæsthetic in surgical and obstetrical operations. Chemically, it is a triatomic haloid ether of the methyl series = trichloromethane, or methenyl trichloride, Cl3 CH.
[1834. J. Dumas, in Ann. de Chimie, LVI. 120. La formule … correspond à un chlorure d’hydrogene carboné, qui est l’équivalent de l’acide formique anhydre…. C’est ce qui m’engage à la désigner sous le nom de chloroforme.]
1838. T. Thomson, Chem. Org. Bodies, § 5. 312–3. Chloroform. This remarkable substance was discovered about the same time by MM. Soubeiran and Liebig [Dates 1831, 1832].
1847. Sir J. Simpson, New Anæsthetic, 7. I have found, however, one infinitely more efficacious than any of the others, viz. Chloroform, or the perchloride of formyle.
1847. Illust. Lond. News, 4 Dec., 370/2. Chloroform. This new anæsthetic agent was used most successfully last Monday.
1859. Q. Rev., 74. At the Liverpool meeting of the professors of ‘Social Science’ [1858], Sir James Stephen introduced … the happy phrase of ‘statistical chloroform.’
1860. All Y. Round, No. 45. 452. Had Simpson kept secret the means of abrogating pain by chloroform, what immense pecuniary benefit would have accrued to himself!
b. in Comb. as chloroform-bottle, -drunkenness, -giver, -inhaler, -poisoning, etc. Chloroform-coagulum: see quot.; chloroform-narcosis, insensibility produced by chloroform.
1878. trans. Ziemssen’s Cycl. Med., XVII. 418. When defibrinated blood and chloroform are mixed together, outside the body, there is produced a peculiar albuminous precipitate of the colour of red sealing-wax (chloroform coagulum). Ibid., 431. Those who divide chloroform narcosis into several clearly distinguished stages. Ibid., 439. There is no medicinal treatment for cases of chloroform poisoning.
