Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1901-04-30

Not SO Easy from Criminal stand.
point as Usually Imagined

lowed with great interest by writer's
on medical jurisprudence. Hitherto,
says the London Mail, many such
writer's have expressed great doubt
about these cases, for the process is
by no means so easy Of use as people
think.
Very extravagant ideas prevail
among the public as to the power Of
anaesthetics, owing, perhaps. tc the
license employed by noyelists, when
they describe ''fancy" cases in their
books.
One reads, for instance, of man
in a railway carriage waving a hand
kerchief before the face Of a fellow
traveller and producing instantaneous
inconsistencies. This is absolutely
impossible. Another imaginative
writer recently described murder
carried out by pushing towel sat
urated with a powerful anaestfetic
under the bedroom door Of his Sleep
ing victim. This also is nonsense.
In another tale the more feasible
plan is carried out of entering the
sleeping mans chamber and pouring
The anaesthctic on the bed. thcinur.
derer standing by and Watching his
victim die. Buteven this is stretching
the truth rather severely.
The true facts about chloro?orm
and It's companion anaostheic ether,
are as follows:
First, with regard to administering
the drug during sleep. Doctors have
made very exhaustive experiment,
for it would be Of great advantage to
a patient on whom an operation has
10 be performed TO chlorororm him
while asleep, and save him the hor-
Tor which so many people have Of The
inhalation, and they sum up the re-
suits showing that very rarely can
chloroform be administered TO
sleeping person without awakening
him. Grown people are, with The
rarest exception, awakened by the ir-
ritating fumes If man were very
tired, and If his nose were naturally |
insensitive to unpleasant odors, and |
especially if he were under the in
Auence of drink, it might be possible
to make him unconscious while /,
asleep. But not even every doctor
could do it. The operation would re-
quire the highest skill And the most
skillful administrator would succeed |
only once in a hundred times.
If we take the case of spilling the |
chlorofoFm in a room and thus inn
ORIGINATING all the air of the room,
The thing is out of the question Yet
not only do novelists assert that this
can be done, but many people have
been actually charged in real 'ife
with doing it--for the purpose of
blackmailing them for injuriHg them
or perhaps to throw oil suspicion from
The pretended victim who has COM
mitied the robbery himself If The
room measures. say, II feet squareand |
IS nine feet high it woud probably |
take a gallon of chloroform pilIed on
the floor to make a man unconscious. |
All the chinkS and cranuics would |
have to be stopped up first, moreover, |
ard the operator himself would have
to be poison proof or he also would |
succumb
As matter Of fact, the only way to
render a person unconscious by the
use Of chloroform is in the way prac
ticed by surgeons in the operating
room. And this is by no means an
easy task. There are several ways of
doing it. The chloroform may be
dropped on a handkerchief, which is
then held over the face at some little
distance, or it may be dropped on a
sponge, or it may be used in one of the
innumerable machines invented for
the purpose. But the vapor must be
mixed with air before it is brcathed
That is the reason the handkerchief
or the spongeis held some inches from
the face. As a rule, it takes FROM five
to eight minutes TO make the person
unconscious, and during his time he
generally struggles very Violently.
1t is probable that many Of the
charges Of chloroforming which,Lave
been made are false, Sometimes the
pretended victim asserts that he has
become unconscious Immediately.
But it has been shown in evidence