Anaesthetic
The anaesthetic qualities of chloroform were first described in 1842 in a thesis by Robert Mortimer Glover, which won the Gold Medal of the Harveian Society for that year. Glover also undertook practical experiments on dogs to prove his theories. Glover further refined his theories and presented them in the thesis for his doctorate at the University of Edinburgh in the summer of 1847. The Scottish obstetrician James Young Simpson was one of the persons required to read the thesis, but later claimed to have never read the thesis and to have come to his conclusions independently.On 4 November 1847, Simpson first discovered the anesthetic qualities of chloroform on humans. He and two colleagues were entertaining themselves by trying the effects of various substances, and thus revealed the potential for chloroform in medical procedures.A few days later, during the course of a dental procedure in Edinburgh, Francis Brodie Imlach became the first person to use chloroform on a patient in a clinical context. In May 1848, Robert Halliday Gunning made a presentation to the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh following a series of laboratory experiments on rabbits that confirmed Glovers findings and also refuted Simpsons claims of originality. A knighthood for Simpson, and massive media coverage of the wonders of chloroform, ensured that Simpsons reputation remained high. In contrast, the laboratory experiments proving the dangers of chloroform were largely ignored. Gunning, who became one of the richest persons in Britain, endowed some 13 university scholarships under the names of other scientists rather than his own name.
In September 1900, chloroform was implicated in the murder of the U.S. businessman William Marsh Rice, the namesake of the institution now known as Rice University. Chloroform was deemed a factor in the alleged murder of a woman in 1991 when she was asphyxiated while sleeping. In 2002, 13-year-old Kacie Woody was sedated with chloroform when she was abducted by David Fuller and during the time that he had her, before he shot and killed her. In a 2007 plea bargain, a man confessed to using stun guns and chloroform to sexually assault minors.Use of chloroform as an incapacitating agent has become widely recognized, bordering on clichéd, due to the popularity of crime fiction authors having criminals use chloroform-soaked rags to render victims unconscious. Nonetheless, it is nearly impossible to incapacitate someone using chloroform in this manner. It takes at least five minutes of inhaling an item soaked in chloroform to render a person unconscious. Most criminal cases involving chloroform also involve another drug being co-administered, such as alcohol or diazepam, or the victim being found to have been complicit in its administration. After a person has lost consciousness due to chloroform inhalation, a continuous volume must be administered, and the chin must be supported to keep the tongue from obstructing the airway, a difficult procedure typically requiring the skills of an anesthesiologist. In 1865 as a direct result of the criminal reputation chloroform had gained, the medical journal The Lancet offered a "permanent scientific reputation" to anyone who could demonstrate "instantaneous insensibility", i.e.