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chloroform used, and to the care with which it is prepai-ed ; and 

 partly to the experience and judicious management of those whose 

 duty it is to administer it, at the head of whom stands the introducer 

 of chloroform, my friend and colleague, Dr Simpson. 



It is much to be regretted that, in London and elsewhere, chloro- 

 form is pot by any means so extensively employed as it ought to be, 

 in consequence of the occurrence of some fatal cases, attributed 

 (whether in all cases accurately or not, is a question) to the drug. 

 There can be no doubt that most, if not all, of these cases have 

 resulted from the use of very impure chloroform, such as even at a 

 recent period was largely sold in London ; and that, if pure chloro- 

 form alone had been employed, there would, by this time, have been 

 no prejudice against its use. It is not, as I have shewn, necessary 

 that chloroform should be very impure, in order to produce very 

 disagreeable or even dangerous results. It is evident that even a 

 small proportion of the oils above mentioned, if they are deleterious 

 (and this cannot, I think, be doubted), will suffice, when applied in 

 the form of vapour to the internal surface of the lungs, to act 

 powerfully on the system. On the other hand, I am far from 

 blaming those chemists who have manufactured impure chloroform 

 for anything more than a want of due care in the preparation of an 

 aofent so energetic. And it is but fair to bear in mind that it was a 

 new manufacture, hardly yet fully understood, and that those who 

 made it were not probably aware, either of the existence of the im- 

 purities, or of the best mode of removing them. I have no doubt 

 they did their best to pi'oduce a good article ; and my chief object in 

 this paper has been to put it in the power of every one to do so, and 

 to point out strongly the bad effects of even a small amount of 

 impurity. 



While I acquit the makers of impure chloroform of any desire to 

 adulterate it, I think it right to add that some of them must have 

 been entirely ignorant of what was published concerning its proper- 

 ties. Thus some sold it of specific gravity 1*465, others of 1-347 ; 

 and in the case of No. 8, which I have no doubt was under 1-000, 

 althouorh I had not enough to take its density accurately, the maker 

 had evidently rejected the chloroform, and preserved the lighter 

 liquid floating over it ! — not knowing even that chloroform was a 

 heavy liquid. It is lamentable to think that persons so ignorant are 

 free, by our laws, to set up as makers of the most potent drugs. 



