Talk:Chloroform

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Why is the presence of chloroform in small quatities in drinking water a good thing?

  • It isn't. Maybe you are confusing this with chlorine, which is added to drinking water supplies in many areas as a disinfectant. Physchim62 20:43, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] IUPAC Name

I altered the IUPAC name from Chloroform to Trichloromethane, which is the current correct nomenclature for organic compounds. Bochum 22:33, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Confusing sentence

In the United States, chloroform did not replace ether as an anesthetic until the beginning of the 20th century; however, its use was readily abandoned in favor of the latter upon discovery of its undesirable toxicological properties and its propensity to cause sudden, fatal cardiac arrhythmia in a manner analogous to what is now termed sudden sniffer's death.

This sentence could be better written. I assume it's trying to say that ether was abandoned in favor of chloroform upon discovery of ether's toxicological properties and propensity to cause cardiac arrhythmia. Is this right? If so, some of the occurrences of "its" should probably be clarified, and "latter" should be changed to "former". I'd change it myself, but I'm not sure what it's trying to say. —Bkell 19:21, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • Yes, the sentence is confusing, the proof is that you got it the wrong way round! Chloroform is more likely than ether to cause sudden death (some people are hypersensitive to CHCl3), which is why ether continued to be used as an anaesthetic dispite the fire risk. Will see what I can do, when I get hold of some verifiable sources. Physchim62 19:44, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • You'll find some debate among historians of medicine as to why it was the case, but in the UK and Germany (and possibly elsewhere in Europe; I don't know) chloroform dominated anaesthesia in the later 19th and early 20th centuries, while in the US, ether did. Chloroform certainly had its critics during this whole time, but the debate of which one was safer wasn't conclusively decided until the 1930s (the numbers were something like 1 in 5000 fatal complications for chloroform vs. 1 in 20,000 for ether), at which point, it was moot, since it was about this time that barbiturates came onto the scene. Shimmin 21:27, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)
    • That's pretty much what I remember from university, although both figures for the mortality rate from this period seems a little low to me. We still need some sources on this, I'll see what I can do. Physchim62 21:14, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] another confusing sentence

  • In reality, a dose far greater than a few drops inhaled over a short period of time would be required to knock somebody out; such a dose could also be lethal.

do people really need more or less?

  • The way I see it the answer to your question is "more". The sentence indicates that a dose larger than a few drops would be required to render someone unconscious. It probably sounds confusing because the author tried to report in a single sentence that, in those TV series, both the dosage and the time required for CHCl3 to work are too low than required. Berserker79 07:23, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Edited for clarity and simplicity

I found the second paragraph ("In 1847 ...") to be very confusing. I edited the entire paragraph for clarity and simplicity. I tried to change nothing by way of reported facts.

It still bothers me that there's so much info here on ether in an article that's supposed to be about chloroform.

TH 03:11, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Should there be a mention in the "uses" section of the use of chloroform in science research to lyse bacteria cells when studying viruses which infect them? Or is that too trivial a use?Apple Rancher 17:29, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

If it's (a) a major use (this is done a lot) and (b) it's specific to chloroform (e.g., you don't have other labs routinely using dichloromethane or toluene), then I'd say yes. I think I added the bit about it being used in NMR; in this case it is a widely used technique, and probably over 80% (my guess) of samples use chloroform as the solvent. Walkerma 19:31, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ozone layer

Does this compound itself deplete ozone or not? I can't find any information claiming either case. --Frank Lofaro Jr. 08:33, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

No, chloroform does not have a significant ozone depletion potential. Polonium 00:02, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Apparent Inconsistency

Its anaesthetic properties were noted early in 1847 by Marie-Jean-Pierre Flourens (1794-1867)and Robert James Fegle (1790-1842).

Its anaesthetic properties were noted in 1847 by a man who died in 1842? Can anyone clarify this? User:acdavis 20:50 24 June 2006


DISCOVERY OF CHLOROFORM AS AN ANAESTHETIC SELBY PG BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL 2 (4480): 753-753 1946

Was Chloroform Produced before 1831? Anesthesiology. 92(1):290, January 2000. Defalque, Ray J. M.D.; Wright, A. J. M.L.S.

From Out of the Primordial Soup: A Brief History of Anaesthesia The Internet Journal of Anesthesiology TM ISSN: 1092-406X Robert Hirst, MB ChB [1]

Can not acces all but the answere must be there! --Stone 11:16, 24 June 2006 (UTC)


Maybe the anaesthesia was so good he only looked dead...? Good question. There appears to be no mention of Robert James Fegle on the surface web other than this Wikipedia article. Added a citation needed tag until someone with access to specialized sources can sort this out. Femto 12:29, 24 June 2006 (UTC)


The short, tragic life of Robert M. Glover. Historical note Defalque, R. J.; Wright, A. J.; Anaesthesia. 59(4):394-400, April 2004. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Stone (talk • contribs) 14:10, 9 January 2007 (UTC).

dont really know how to do this, but the link to "harmful" in the right pannel links to a page about a german rock band, not the classification of the substance.

[edit] Possible Citation Found

Being a Wikipedia idiot, I'll let someone else take care of this. Searching for other info on this topic revealed a website http://www.general-anaesthesia.com/images/chloroform.htm that appears to be the origin for the first paragragh of this article.

They sources cited in the new edits are from the following sources

1.Chloroform. (2001, October). Human heath fact sheet. Retrieved March 13, 2007,

    from http://www.deq.state.id.us/inl_oversight/contamination/fact_sheets/
    chloroform.pdf

2.Vinten-Johansen, P., Brody, H., Paneth, N., Rachman, S., & Rip, M. (2003).

    Chloroform. In Cholera, chloroform, and the science of Medicine; A life of
    John Snow (pp. 140-164). New York: Oxford University Press.

3.Bowen, S. E., Batis, J. C., Paez-Martinez, N., & Cruz, S. L. (2006,

    November/December). The last decade of solvent research in animal models of
    abuse: Mechanistic and behavioral studies. Neurotoxicology and Teratology,
    28(6), 636-647. Retrieved March 13, 2007, from EBSCOhost database:
    http://www.sciencedirect.com/
    science?_ob=ArticleListURL&_method=list&_ArticleListID=548933535&_sort=d&view=c&_
    acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=688a5549480493bc7793ad42d
    f4dc7ba

4.Ksir, C., Hart, C. L., & Ray, O. (2006). Drugs, society, and human behavior

    (12th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. (Original work published 1972)
Yes, the first paragraph in the "History" section does appear to have been copied from the above website. I've commented out the paragraph until it can be rewritten. Fvasconcellos 00:36, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

The page was vandalized to simply read "if she doesn't remember it, it's not date rape" or something like that. Unfortunately I'm a n00b and am not really sure what to do, but just giving you all the heads up. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.84.84.111 (talk • contribs).

Was fixed one minute after it was added. Try refresh your browser cache. Femto 12:56, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Popular culture

In this section it says to refer to chloroform's entry in fictional applications of real materials, however it has no entry there that I can see. Cyraan 20:55, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

The entry there was recently removed, I've restored it. Femto 15:43, 6 May 2007 (UTC)