By the late 1890s it was conjoined in yellow journalism and the popular imagination with addiction, suicide, rape, and murder, and with the enduring misconception that a chloroform-soaked rag held over a victim’s face produces an instant loss of consciousness (in reality, this requires continued deep breathing). At the same time it developed a sinister reputation, thanks to a handful of sensational criminal cases such as that of Henry Howard Holmes, who used it in the murders of an unknown number of people in Chicago during the World’s Fair of 1893. Doctors and journalists commented disapprovingly on chloroform’s “luxurious” use in tea rooms, and on the occasional public sightings of groups of young women giggling and swooning under its influence. Now widely available in pharmacies, these powerful solvents were inhaled as soothing vapours for chest and lung conditions, as an analgesic for aches and pains, and as fast-acting tranquillisers for panic attacks and other nervous conditions. First routinely employed as surgical anaesthetics in the 1840s, diethyl ether and chloroform were no longer confined to operating theatres by the century’s close.
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