Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1884-03-07
Misusine Chloroform.

west side druggist glancing at a scrap
That old an alarming story of q preva-
lent vice among New York women,
/" and know just what it is worth. In
the i%nscrutable wisdom of an all-wise
providence, all the legitimate descend
ants of Annanias and Sapphira have
become New York correspondents for
country newspapers, and oh, how they
lie. -Four or five, yes, half a dozen
years ago, there was some basis of truth
tor that story, for then a great many
women did use chloroform as an intoxi-
cant, but OF late years,that taste has be-
come rare. Even when the vice was
most prevalent. where one woman
used chloroform three took choral and
five were addicted to hypodermic in
Ject:ons, or the internal use of morphia,
and the n habit that has spread most
and has the greatest number of victims
now, by far, is the simultaneous iniec-
ton OF morphine. Such, at least, has
been the result of my observation, and
l think | known the business"
An east side druggist said: "The
writer OF that paragraph, I see, settles
upon the women Of the east side as
those most addicted to the use of chlor-
oform. He is wrong. Formerly
several years ago-l suppose they took
their share of it, as a good MANY women
then did, but it has gone out of fashion.
view here and there have become slaves
of the vice and cannot leave it off, but
their number is not worth talking about.
L. know of two such but neither is
among my customers. Iwould not sell
chloroform, knowingly, to be used
in that way. YOU had better ask
some reliable physician if you want
Isolid facts about the matter"
DIR. Stephen w. Roof said: 'Unques-
tionably the use of chloroform as a
stimulant has declined of late years,
but there is still a great deal of the drug
consumed in that way. 1t is by no
means easy to determine who are the
chloroform drunkards, for they are
almost all women, and women are very
secretive and cunning when it comes to
doing what they know is wrong. They
will buy small quantities of the fluid
from different drug stores where they
are not know and under various pre-
texts. Often they will get it in the form
of a very strong chloroform liniment,
when they simply purpose inhaling it,
but wish to conceal the fact. There
are almost as many women who use
sulphuric ether in chat way. as there are
who take chloroform, but the latter is
mostlikely to be preferred, as it is sweet
er and pleasanter. When the evil
effects of hydrate of choral were
exposeda number of years ago at q time
when it was a popular drug for
those who sought intoxication other
than alcoholic, a good many women
were badly scared, but, unable to drop
everything of the sort, turned from it to
chloroform and ether. The habit OF
getting drunk on such things becomes
fixed, Just as the habit of liquor-drink.
ing does, but it is less likely to spread
and make new permanent victims, be-
cause there is no sociability about these
drug DRINKS. People who resort to them
do SO positively and solely for TIE SEN
sual and selfish qualification of inebri-
alton. And they do not afford the sat
isfaction that drinking men want and
find in liquor. If you saturate q cloth
with chloroform or ether and throw it
over your face and breathe the fumes,
you will have a very brief e~xhilaration,
say for a minute or two, and then all
will be gone, except, perhaps, a little
feeling of nausea. To get drunk as q
drinking mar can with liquor, it is nee
cssary to keep on saturating the cloth
at short intervals.
"Women who have a tendency to
hysteria are those most likely to resort
to the use of chloroform and ether. OF
course, temporary relief is obtained,
but the ultimate consequence is an ag-
gravation of the complaint, and those
lru,p ro will irIr10a q ,,opfo1 or1 rhrcioo1
condition like mania a potu just as GER
tainly as liquor will. 1 knew of a wo1
man a few years ago, the wife of an ex-
cellent gentleman, a downtown mer-
chant, who was q slave to ether. She
was one of a family of six children, who
all had an inherited p edisposit,on to
drunkenness. Every little while the
craving would come upon her for IN
ether spree. She would have a violent
fit OF hysteria, and to quiet her the hus-
band was obliged to supply her with
ether. He used to buy it in quantity
from a wholesale house, and she would
empty pound bottles by the dozen.
Each of her either sprees would last
about two weeks. During that time she
would shut herself up in her room, and
SO much of the drug did she use that
the smell of it would enter the adjoln-
ing houses and even reach the street,.
although she was or the third floor. 1t
killed her eventually"
"What is the difference between
chlorI form and sulphuric ether?"
"Oh. there is a vast deal of difference
in. their properties, composition-in
fact, in everything about them, except
that they are both anesthetics. Chloro-
form is the ~pleasantest to take, because
it is sweet, and women are likelyto pre-
fea it on that account. Crude chloro-
form is made with chlorinated lime,
rectified spirit, slaked lime, water. sui
phuric ac:d and chloride of calcium.
Quite an impure form of it is largely
produced in England by the action Of
chlorinated line on pyroxilic spirit. The
article administered in medicine is
purified, and is produced by a process
requiring skill, delicacy and accuracy.
Sulphurlc ether is composed of ethyl
oxide and alcohol, with sulphur1c acid,
chloride of calcium, slaked lime and
water. 1t is obtained by the action Of
sulphuric acid on alcohol"
"Hardly an inviting recipe"