Repetitive hallucinations. For every inhalation, you think “hey, what is that - I’ve seen somethin like it before” - and then utter your new comment. Which will, subsequently, be added to the stack. And relived.
Permanent liver damage? I thought the liver could regenerate from most insults. This is why it takes so long for it to fail even for an alcoholic (apparently it takes about 10 years for cirrhosis to kill you, and if you stop drinking at year 8 it will apparently regenerate)
The subject reminded me of this guy, who allegedly increased the throughput of the nursing home he worked at in NYC by poisoning the patients in 1915.
His method of choice was chloroform. He had tried arsenic but they didn’t die nicely, so he changed to the alternate (and hard to detect) treatment.
NPR has posted the relevant chapter from “The Poisoner’s Handbook’: CSI’s Jazz Age Roots” by Deborah Blum.
This seems to corroborate the caustic angle, though no Indiana-Jones face melting, still it seems a relevant side effect…
Spread over the 12 years this thread has been sitting here, and given we’re talking about a drug of potential abuse, it seems like a reasonable number. I wonder how many views were search engines just cataloging the page?
Back in the old days, some formulas did contain it. My guess is that it was to make it smell and taste bad; back in the day, many people believed that the worse a medicine tasted, the better it worked.
Nope. Once you get scarring in the liver, it stays. The liver can recover some function with care and management, but the scar tissue does not revert to functional liver.
[QUOTE=wikipedia]
Generally, liver damage from cirrhosis cannot be reversed, but treatment could stop or delay further progression and reduce complications. A healthy diet is encouraged, as cirrhosis may be an energy-consuming process.
[/QUOTE]
The liver can regrow from some forms of physical damage, but scarring due to chemical damage (such as toxic chemicals, alcohol or fat buildup) isn’t one of them.
Just being a solvent means nothing. A solvent is simply something that is used to dissolve things. Water is a solvent when you make tea. There are different types of solvents though. Water is a polar inorganic solvent and will readily dissolve polar things like salts be it sodium chloride (table salt), potassium iodide, sodium hydroxide, etc. Non polar organic things will not readily mix with or dissolve in water or solutions like it. This is why oil and water do not mix. Water is polar meaning it has ends that are slightly charged which causes the positive ends of one water molecule to be attracted to the negative side of another. This means they act sort of like a giant tub of little magnetic balls constantly stirring about. If that were to be mixed with a bunch of non magnetic balls and stirred about the magnetic ones would cling together and push the other to either the top or bottom depending on which is the most dense of the two. This is what happens when oil and water are mixed. Oil is non polar, water is quite polar. Dichloromethane (a substance near identical to chloroform) will not mix with water nor dissolve many of the things water does but will dissolve many non polar organic substances which is why it is used in paint strippers. Soap works by being both. Soap is a long organic molecule with one polar end and one non polar end. The non polar end of the soap molecules are attracted to and surround the non polar organic oils on your skin (which do not mix with water making it hard for water to wash it off thus exposing and pushing off the dirt beneath). They surround the micro droplet of oil and form a pin cushion like thing called a micelle with the oil droplet trapped inside and the polar water loving ends of the soap on the outside. This means the whole micelle will be attracted to the water you use to rinse; thus taking the trapped oil with it. The membranes of cells take advantage of this difference in solubility as well. One end loves water the other does not. The outside of much of your cells, for the most part, don’t like polar inorganic liquids like water. If they did much of you would dissolve every time you took a drink. Chloroform’s most common use today is as an organic solvent. This is why it may hurt to have chloroform on certain parts of your body for prolonged periods of time. It will dissolve parts of your cells. How long it takes will depend on where it is applied and how much. Either way, it will be complete nor “melt your face off.” Though it will not be good for you.
Chloroform takes a while to work when inhaled. It will not knock you out in 10-15 seconds like someone in this thread previously said. You are looking at a period of time of at least five minutes of continuous inhalation. If some cunt tried knocking some poor soul out by holding a chloroform soaked rag over their mouth they would likely be unconscious in about half that time but that would be due to a lack of oxygen as a fucking rag is being held over their face. Plus the chloroform would likely evaporate either completely or to an ineffective amount before the effects could take hold.
Chloroform inhalation results in effects such as feeling light head, very slight audible hallucinations (mostly just a light pulsating hum), slight pain relief, slight euphoria, and eventually unconsciousness. It only takes a few milliliters to achieve these effects, a few more to achieve unconsciousness, a few more and you have death due to repository depression. This is why it is not used today. It is a very effective general anesthetic. It works quickly and results in no pain but there is a small difference between an effective dose and a lethal dose and it is difficult to accurately determine which is which for each patient.
Back in my wayward youth, I occasionally used ether recreationally. It was like being extremely drunk, with vivid hallucinations. Also, I’ve done LSD and mushrooms, and ether was by far the most hallucinogenic of the three. I can’t imagine how much you would have to give someone to actually knock them out, but it wouldn’t be quick or easy.