CHLOROFORM  AND  THE  TESTS  FOR  ITS  PURITY  IN  P.  B.  289 
ON  CHLORGFOEM  AND  THE  TESTS  FOR  ITS  PURITY  INP.B. 
By  D.  R.  Brown.  ■ 
Chloroform  seems  to  have  been  first  prepared  by  Graham,*  an 
American  chemist,  in  1831 ;  but  he  was  not  aware  of  it.  In 
1820,  Dr.  Thomas  Thomson  gave  the  name  of  chloric  ether  to 
the  compound  known  as  Dutch  liquid,  the  empirical  formula  of 
which  is  C4H4C12.  Somebody  made  a  statement  in  Silliman's 
American  Journal  that  a  solution  in  alcohol  of  the  so-called 
chloric  ether  was  a  grateful  stimulant.  It  led  Mr.  Graham  to 
attempt  making  it  cheaply  by  the  action  of  bleaching  powder 
upon  alcohol ;  and  believing  he  had  succeeded,  he  published  his 
results,  and  gave  a  formula  for  its  preparation  involution  in 
alcohol.  He  was,  however,  under  a  mistake ;  what  he  did  get 
was  just  an  impure  and  somewhat  weaker  chloric  ether  of  the 
present  day, — that  is  to  say,  a  solution  of  chloroform  in  alcohol, 
a  solution  of  the  compound  C9H  Cl3,  and  not,  as  he  supposed, 
ofC4H4Cl2. 
Soubeiran,  in  1831,  distilled  bleaching  powder  and  alcohol 
together  ;  examining  the  product,  he  discovered  chloroform,  and 
gave  as  its  formula  C  H  CI  or  C4H4C14,  and  thus  held  it  to  be 
Thomson's  chloric  ether  plus  another  double  atom  of  CI,  and 
therefore  named  it  bichloric  ether. 
In  1832  Liebig  also  discovered  and  examined  chloroform. 
He  failed,  however,  to  find  hydrogen  in  it.  Not  much  to  be 
wondered  at,  as  119i  grains  contain  no  more  than  one  of  Hy- 
drogen. The  formula  given  by  him  was  C4C15,  and  he  named 
it  chloride  of  carbon. 
Dumas,  in  1834,  entered  more  carefully  into  its  investigation, 
and  as  the  result  gave  for  its  formula  C2H  Cl3,  and  named  it 
by  its  present  well-known  designation,  Chloroform.  Liebig, 
however,  while  he  accepted  Dumas's  formula,  held  it  to  be  the 
perchloride  of  the  radical  formule  =  C2H  +  Cl3,  and  so  named 
it  the  perchloride  of  formule.  We  may  notice  here  that  a  com- 
pound with  the  same  name  differently  spelt,  said  to  be  C4H2C14, 
is  described  in  vol.  ix.  of  Gmelin's  Chemistry,  pp.  199,  200.  as 
"  the  so-called  Perchloride  of  Formyl." 
Since  Dumas's  investigation,  and  perhaps  very  properly 
following  upon  Professor  Simpson's  discovery,  almost  the  whole 
*  [This  is  an  error  ;  it  should  be  Samuel  Guthrie. — Ed.  A.  J.  Ph.] 
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