The criminal use of chloroform / by I.N. Quimby.

  • Quimby, I.N.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The criminal use of chloroform / by I.N. Quimby. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    her natural sleep, and therefore she must have known who the murderer or murderers were. Here, then, as will be seen, arose a very nice and important medico-legal question, viz.: whether a person could be chloro- formed whilst in natural slumber without first being awakened, or, in other words, whether the application of chloroform, properly given, would awaken the person to whom it was ap- plied ; or, could such person pass from the natural to an artifi- cial sleep (or chloroform sleep) without being aroused by its application ? Mrs. Smith asserted most positively that she was chloro- formed while she was asleep in bed with her husband, and knew nothing about the murder until she awoke in a bewil- dered condition, feeling the cold elbow of her husband pressing against her side. It may be stated here that there was found in the room of the murdered man a bottle partly filled with chloroform, and a folded towel with bloody finger prints, which Mrs. Smith asserted was upon her face when she awoke. She also described quite accurately the taste, smell and pun- gency of chloroform. Without going into further details, the counsel for Mrs. Smith applied to me to know if it were possible to transfer a person from a natural to an artificial sleep by the use of chlo- roform without first arousing the sleeper from his natural slumber? I replied that I had never attempted the applica- tion of chloroform to a person while in a natural sleep, and the books, as far as I knew, were silent on that point; although