# Hollywood: "chloroform" on hanky, then face, and after a little struggle he's unconscious
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-chloroform-on-hanky-then-face-and-after-a-little-struggle-hes-unconscious/810017
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [March 4, 2018, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-chloroform-on-hanky-then-face-and-after-a-little-struggle-hes-unconscious/810017 "2018-03-04T18:06:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2018, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-chloroform-on-hanky-then-face-and-after-a-little-struggle-hes-unconscious/810017/21 "2018-03-05T16:33:17Z")
> [@B-Rad](#):
>
> Nobody sells chloroform. It’s left for all the good little boys and girls of the world by…the Ether Bunny.
For shame!
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### Author:  [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2018, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-chloroform-on-hanky-then-face-and-after-a-little-struggle-hes-unconscious/810017/22 "2018-03-05T16:50:23Z")
> [@DPRK](#):
>
> I’m not even sure the shopkeeper would hesitate to sell it to kids unless it were patently obvious they were going to sniff it.
No, no, no… you’re thinking about Colorforms 😛
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### Author:  [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2018, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-chloroform-on-hanky-then-face-and-after-a-little-struggle-hes-unconscious/810017/23 "2018-03-05T19:22:49Z")
> [@DPRK](#):
>
> …
> Anyway, that stuff is nasty; I wonder how how they got the patient to sit there inhaling it for 5 minutes?
The chemical supply store cited above in #20 says it’s “sweet smelling.” _À chacun son goût._
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### Author:  [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2018, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-chloroform-on-hanky-then-face-and-after-a-little-struggle-hes-unconscious/810017/24 "2018-03-05T19:42:14Z")
> [@Arrendajo](#):
>
> According to [this](https://www.scienceabc.com/humans/movies/does-chloroform-knock-you-out-as-quickly-as-they-show-in-movies.html) article, you’d have to breath it for about 5 minutes to become unconscious.
That article is wrong. It doesn’t take five minutes. A few deep breaths is all it takes.
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### Author:  [@mmmiiikkkeee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mmmiiikkkeee)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2018, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-chloroform-on-hanky-then-face-and-after-a-little-struggle-hes-unconscious/810017/25 "2018-03-05T20:41:25Z")
> [@psychonaut](#):
>
> That article is wrong. It doesn’t take five minutes. A few deep breaths is all it takes.
I think Hollywood makes the process of forcing a person to take a few deep breaths while someone holds a weird smelling rag across your face from behind out to be a lot easier than it actually is. I can have trouble forcing a nose wipe on my two-year olds if they don’t want me to put a Kleenex on their face. I’d expect a lot of yelling (exhaling) and struggling if I snuck up a grabbed someone from behind in a modified choke/strangle hold rather than them holding still and taking those deep breaths unconcerned with what’s happening.
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### Author:  [@MacLir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacLir)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2018, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-chloroform-on-hanky-then-face-and-after-a-little-struggle-hes-unconscious/810017/26 "2018-03-06T20:59:56Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#):
>
> Who the heck sells chloroform?
Why bother? You can get ether at the auto supply / hardware / _et cetera_ in spray cans. It’s not medical di-ethyl ether, but good enough for thuggish purposes. :dubious:
For that matter, most of the nastier paint thinners … :rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2018, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-chloroform-on-hanky-then-face-and-after-a-little-struggle-hes-unconscious/810017/27 "2018-03-06T21:10:17Z")
> [@MacLir](#):
>
> It’s not medical di-ethyl ether, but good enough for thuggish purposes. :dubious:
>
> For that matter, most of the nastier paint thinners … :rolleyes:
I find a garotte to be much more effective.
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### Author:  [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2018, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-chloroform-on-hanky-then-face-and-after-a-little-struggle-hes-unconscious/810017/28 "2018-03-08T03:53:56Z")
> [@Pantastic](#):
>
> if you could just spray some knockout gas and knock someone out, you wouldn’t need someone to go to school to learn how to do it safely.
Actually, ether is pretty close to that – you can just spray some knockout gas and knock someone out, you don’t need someone to go to school to learn how to do it safely.
It is, like chloroform, highly and dangerously inflamable, which was one reason it fell out of use in modern electrically illuminated surgical theatres. In remained in use much longer in sun-lit open-air surgical theatres, were it’s safety and ease of use by people without decades of medical study was also important.
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### Author:  [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2018, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-chloroform-on-hanky-then-face-and-after-a-little-struggle-hes-unconscious/810017/29 "2018-03-08T06:53:41Z")
> [@mmmiiikkkeee](#):
>
> I think Hollywood makes the process of forcing a person to take a few deep breaths while someone holds a weird smelling rag across your face from behind out to be a lot easier than it actually is. I can have trouble forcing a nose wipe on my two-year olds if they don’t want me to put a Kleenex on their face.
Only because you are going out of your way not to hurt them.
I saw a documentary once about a kidnapper. He explained he experimented on himself using home made chloroform. According to him it worked fairly quickly and he used it successfully on his victims.
And you can’t yell without first taking a deep breath. Or if you did, your next reflex would be to take a deep breath.
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### Author:  [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2018, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-chloroform-on-hanky-then-face-and-after-a-little-struggle-hes-unconscious/810017/30 "2018-03-08T14:51:10Z")
> [@Melbourne](#):
>
> Actually, ether is pretty close to that – you can just spray some knockout gas and knock someone out, you don’t need someone to go to school to learn how to do it safely.
I’d like a cite for that, everything I’ve read about ether said that it takes application for 15-20 minutes to go unconscious from it. Administering something for 15-20 minutes does not qualify as ‘just spray some knockout gas’ in the sense I mean, I’m talking about the movie type thing where you spray an aerosol bottle at someone and they go down shortly, or where you pump it into a room and people drop before they can get up from the table and open the door. Ether isn’t easy to kill someone with accidentally, but it also isn’t fast acting and doesn’t work in movie-style knockout gas concentrations (like spraying an aerosol bottle at someone or tossing a ‘knockout gas grenade’ or venting into a room from a single tank).
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### Author:  [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2018, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-chloroform-on-hanky-then-face-and-after-a-little-struggle-hes-unconscious/810017/31 "2018-03-08T19:16:55Z")
I just finished reading The Devil in the White City, which is, in part, about H.H. Holmes, a serial killer living in Chicago in the early 1890’s. He used chloroform to kill some of his patients. While the description of the murders is conjecture, the author says it is based on expert testimony given at Holmes’ trial. The book describes the chloroform as being very cold, and that putting a rag doused in it over the victim’s mouth causes her to clench up and grab at his hand before she eventually goes limp a few minutes later.
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### Author:  [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2018, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-chloroform-on-hanky-then-face-and-after-a-little-struggle-hes-unconscious/810017/32 "2018-03-08T21:08:36Z")
John Wayne Gacy chloroformed one of his victims - resulting in permanent liver damage.
> [@](#):
>
> In March 1978, Gacy lured a 26-year-old named Jeffrey Rignall into his car. Upon entering the car, the young man was chloroformed and driven to the house on Summerdale, where he was raped, tortured with various instruments including lit candles and whips, and repeatedly chloroformed into unconsciousness.[176] Rignall was then driven to Lincoln Park, where he was dumped, unconscious but alive. Eventually he managed to stagger to his girlfriend’s apartment. Rignall was later informed the chloroform had permanently damaged his liver. Police were again informed of the assault, but did not investigate Gacy. Rignall was able to recall, through the chloroform haze of that night, Gacy’s distinctive black Oldsmobile, the Kennedy Expressway and particular side streets. He staked out the exit on the Expressway where he knew he had been driven until—in April[177]—he saw Gacy’s distinctive black Oldsmobile, which Rignall and his friends followed to 8213 West Summerdale. Police issued an arrest warrant,[178] and Gacy was arrested on July 15. He was facing an impending trial for a battery charge for the Rignall incident when he was arrested in December for the murders.[
That sounds a lot more like it only took a few breaths, rather than 5 minutes. However, is dangerous.
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2018, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-chloroform-on-hanky-then-face-and-after-a-little-struggle-hes-unconscious/810017/33 "2018-03-08T21:57:20Z")
> [@commasense](#):
>
> Misled, not mislead, which is the present tense and pronounced with a long e sound.
>
> (Yes, this is one of my pet peeves.)
I thought misled is what North Korea does to its enemies, i.e., “In response to U.S. sanctions, Kim misled Washington, DC. There were no survivors.”
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