Medical Portal Mediway.com

Medical Specializations, Medical Dictionary


  Molecules
  Diseases
  Books
  Medical Products
  First aid
  Medical Specializations
  Doctors' Listing
  Hospitals
  Pharma/Drug Companies
  Manufacturers of Surgical
  Instruments

  Medical Colleges
  Medical Associations
  Medical Dictionary
  Conferences & Exhibitions
  Image Gallery
  Video Library
  Home
  Contact Us

Medical Specializations


Anaesthesia => Chloroform


Chloroform


Trichloromethane, CHCl3. A colourless liquid, half again as dense as water and of about the same viscosity, trichloromethane has a heavy, ether-like odour and a burning sweetness of taste, being about 40 times as sweet as cane sugar. It is almost insoluble in water, but it is freely miscible with organic solvents and is an important solvent for gums, resins, fats, elements such as sulphur and iodine, and a wide variety of organic compounds.
Trichloromethane may be prepared by the chlorination of ethyl alcohol or of methane, or by the action of iron and acid on carbon tetrachloride; the latter is the principal industrial method in current use.
Trichloromethane was first prepared in 1831 and was first used as an anaesthetic in 1847 in one of the earliest experiments on surgical anaesthesia. In the presence of light, however, it tends to decompose, yielding the highly poisonous compound carbonyl chloride (phosgene). Even when pure, it causes fatal cardiac paralysis in about one out of 3,000 cases, and so is seldom used for anaesthesia.

Back