9S 
ON CHLOROFORM. 
an oiiy-looking stain to paper, easily dissipated by heat; 
the vapour is not inflammable, but it renders the flame of 
a wax-candle smoky and carbonaceous, like chlorine. 
What is commonly sold as chloric ether is a solution of 
chloroform in alcohol. The alcohol may be detected and 
separated by water, as in the washing of ether ; it may be 
also detected by. potassium ; and as chloroform boils at 
140"^, and alcohol at 172°, it is probable that Dr. Ure's 
method of detecting pyroxylic spirit in alcohol, by the 
temperature of ebullition, might be applied to the detection 
of alcohol in chloroform." 
In reference to the administration of the vapour of chlo- 
roform, we quote from the Lancet the following statements 
recently made by Dr. Snow, which involve some points 
worthy of notice. 
Dr. Snow made some remarks respecting chloroform, at a 
recent meeting of the Westminster Medical Society. He said 
that this agent, which had been introduced by Dr. Simpson, 
to be inhaled instead of ether, was preferable to the latter 
in some respects, although it was impossible that any thing 
could be more efficient than ether, as it was capable of 
totally preventing the pain in every operation in which it 
might be properly applied. He considered that the action 
of chloroform on the nervous system was identical with 
that of ether. By regulating the proportion of vapour in 
the air, he had produced the same effects on animals by 
both agents ; chloroform, however, had the advantage of 
being less pungent, and, therefore, less care was required in 
graduating its first admission to the lungs ; it was readily 
inhaled, and produced its effects with great rapidity, and 
the quantity of it consumed was curiously small when com- 
pared with ether. He had administered it on Thursday, 
in an amputation of the breast performed by Mr. Tatum, 
at the St. George's Hospital. He gave it witli his usual 
apparatus, the water-bath being 55°, and the quantity of 
vapour in the air inhaled not more than ten per cent, by 
