760 
Extracts from British and Foreign Journals. 
ON HYDRATE OF CHLORAL AND ITS USE IN PRACTICE * 
By T. Spencer Wells, F.R.C.S., Surgeon to the Queen’s Household, 
and to the Samaritan Hospital. 
Through the kindness of Professor Bardeleben, of Berlin, 
I received last July about two ounces of hydrate of chloral, a 
substance which had been brought before the Medical Society 
of Berlin as a new hypnotic and anaesthetic on the 2 nd of 
June, by Dr. Otto Liebreich, Chemical Assistant in the Patho¬ 
logical Institut of that city. 
Chloral and chloro-acetic acid were discovered thirty years 
ago by Liebig. When anhydrous alcohol is acted on by 
perfectly dry chlorine-gas, a remarkable result takes place. 
Five-sixths of the hydrogen of the alcohol are removed and 
are replaced by three of chlorine, and after separation of a 
large quantity of muriatic acid, a dense oily liquid, chloral, 
C 4 HCI 3 O 2 , is obtained. The process takes place in the fol¬ 
lowing way:—At first the chlorine removes two equivalents 
of hydrogen, and thus reduces the alcohol to aldehyd; then it 
acts on the hydrogen of the radical acetyl and replaces it, 
forming a new compound radical, the acechloryl C 4 CI 3 . This 
combines with the oxygen and the water in chloral, as 
acetyl is in aldehyd. The rational formula of chloral is 
therefore C^ClgO aq.f 
O + aq. 
V. 
“V 
J 
Alcohol. Aldehyd. Acetyl. 
C,H, 0 ,-H 5 =C 40 ,H 0 ; 
Alcohol. 
C 40 ,H 0 + Cl3 
C^Cl3,0+H0=-C4HCl202. 
'— 
Acechloryl. 
This new substance behaves like all aldehyds. An aldehyd • 
is a very unstable compound, and soon changes its physical 
properties. It will become polymeric; and so will chloral. 
The anhydrous chloral is a veiy pungent oily fluid, which, 
after standing some time, is converted into a solid substance. 
It combines with water, forming a crystalline hydrate of 
chloral, and by degrees is converted into an isomeric sub- 
* Reprinted from the ‘Medical Times and Gazette.’ 
t Old atomic weights are employed in this paper. 
