Tests.—Vapour burns with smoky flame, depositing carbon. Sparingly soluble in water. With bichromate of potash and sulphuric acid same as alcohol.
Chloroform.—A colourless liquid, specific gravity 1.490 to 1.495, very volatile, giving off dense vapour. Sweet taste and pleasant odour.
Symptoms.—When swallowed, characteristic smell in breath, anxious countenance, burning pain in the throat, stomach, and region of the abdomen, staggering gait, coldness of the extremities, vomiting, insensibility, deepening into coma, with stertorous breathing, dilated pupils, and imperceptible pulse. When inhaled, much the same as ether, but produces insensibility and muscular relaxation more rapidly. It would be impossible to instantly render a person insensible by holding a pocket-handkerchief saturated with chloroform over the face. Statements such as this, which are often made in cases of robbery from the person and in cases of rape, are incredible.
Delayed Chloroform-Poisoning.—Death may take place in from four to seven days after chloroform has been administered, especially in the case of children. The internal organs are found to be fattily degenerated, and death is thought to be due to acetonuria.
Post-Mortem Appearances.—Cerebral and pulmonary congestion. Heart empty, or right side distended with dark blood.
Treatment.—Stomach-tube and free lavage; cold affusion; drawing forward tongue; artificial respiration; galvanism and suspension with head downward. Inhalation of nitrite of amyl; strychnine hypodermically.
Fatal Dose.—When swallowed, from 1 to 2 ounces.
Method of Extraction from the Stomach.—By distillation at 120° F. The vapour, as it passes along a glass tube, may be decomposed by heat into chlorine, hydrochloric acid, and carbon—the first shown by setting free iodine in iodide of starch, the second by reddening blue litmus-paper, and the last by its deposit.
Tests.—Taste, colour, weight; burns with a green flame; dissolves camphor, guttapercha, and caoutchouc.
Iodoform.—Poisoning may result from its use in surgery. It produces delirium, sleepiness, and coma. It may lead to mental weakness or optic neuritis.