How does chloroform knock you out

Chloroform, also known as trichloromethane with the formula of CHCl3, is a powerful anaesthetic, used in surgeries from 19 th century. Of course, nowadays we know for its use in various movies — it is a very common motive. And there is quite a bit of truth — chloroform works by inhalation as well. This property has been used by criminals in order to subdue or even kill their victims.

For example, Joseph Harris was charged in with using chloroform to rob people, while serial killer H. Holmes used chloroform overdoses to kill women.

In fact, there were many cases when chloroform was used to commit crimes. In the beginning of 20 th century it was still widely used as an anaesthetic, which made it easier for criminals to acquire some of this substance. Hollywood creators were quick to create this image of a powerful weapon, which can sedate an adult man within seconds — that is how the era of damp cloths started. If you sneaked up on someone and pressed a damp, sweet-smelling cloth to their faces, you would get kicked in the guts.

And probably not just once. Scientists estimate that it would probably take around 5 minutes for an adult person to become unconscious from breathing though a cloth with chloroform on it. That is a long time, which would be filled with fighting.

In fact, this method of sedating your victims is quite dangerous — you will eventually get tired from holding that cloth and you will be facing an angry person after he sets free. But we already mentioned that chloroform was used as a weapon in a lot of criminal acts before — how was that possible? Well, chloroform was rarely used alone — usually it was matched with other drugs or alcohol. Try to avoid outside hyperlinks inside the comment. Help us delete comments that do not follow these guidelines.

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Chloroform works similarly to other volatile anaesthetic agents. The activation of this receptor leads to central nervous system inhibition as a result of chloride moving through the channel. Volatile anaesthetic drugs chloroform, halothane, enflurane, isolfurane, methoxyflurane, sevoflurane, desflurane all work by inhibiting the CNS.

They do not work as quickly as tv and movies will have you believe but there are tricks anaesthetists can employ to sped things up. The rate at which it takes effect depends on the concentration inhaled and regional blood flow ie to the lungs.

Respiratory rate and comorbidities will also alter uptake as will heart disease right to left shunt slows inhaled anaesthetic rate of effect. Chloroform is not used clinically for anaesthesia any longer. Needless to say, no-one has come forward to this date. Chris - It was called a blow to the head probably, wasn't it, rather than chloroform! I think Queen Victoria was the first monarch to undergo a caesarean [section delivery]?

Ben - Yes for a couple of her last pregnancies. How does it work - this is something of debate and, indeed, in all anesthetics there is considerable debate about how they actually cause someone to pass out. Obviously they affect the nervous system. One idea is they affect the flux of potassium ions and this affects the body's response to nerves. Another idea is that the chloroform interferes with the cell membranes and slows down the passage of nerves which makes people less likely to feel pain.

So there's a couple of ideas about how it might work. I should say, it was replaced because it was dangerous. Dangerous for a couple of reasons; one is actually you just breath too much of the gas in your lungs and this fills up your lungs and stops your lungs getting enough oxygen and so you just die from not having enough oxygen. But also, if you start fiddling around with the nervous system, then it can also cause people's hearts to fail because hearts rely on electrical impulses to work and if you mess around with that, you can die of a heart attack.

Chris - So don't do it is the bottom line, because people do abuse other kinds of solvents, like butane out of gas refills and glue - because there are solvents in there - all because they work the same way?