(Guthrie) The pure product must be used. It is a colorless, mobile liquid, having an ethereal odor and sweet to the taste. It should not affect litmus or turn brown with sulphuric acid or give a precipitate with nitrate of silver. If there is emphysema of the lungs, bronchitis, or renal disease, chloroform is to be preferred to ether, also in operations about the oral cavity. Children bear chloroform narcosis better than adults.
Fig. 27.—Schimmelbusch Dropping Bottle.
Fig. 28.—Esmarch Dropping Bottle.
Chloroform first affects the brain, then the sensory tract of the spinal cord, then the motor tract, followed by an involvement of the sensory path of the medulla, paralyzing the respiratory centers, while cardiac syncope may come on at any time during narcosis. Death may be either due to respiratory or cardiac failure, often from both. To overcome this the anesthetic should not be crowded, nor should the apparatus be held too close to the mouth of the patient. The best method of giving it is by means of the dropping bottle of Schimmelbusch ([Fig. 27]) or that of Esmarch ([Fig. 28]) and a simple mask or apparatus.
Fig. 29.—Schimmelbusch Improved Folding Mask.
Fig. 30.—Esmarch Inhaler.