Molecules: You'd better learn to live with them.
Uganda's police warned male bar-goers to keep their noses clean after a probe found a gang of robbers had been using women with chloroform smeared on their chests to knock their victims unconscious.
If you take the article at face value, if the women are actually smearing chloroform across their bare chests, it's unlikely it'd work very well. A thin film of chloroform will evaporate pretty quickly, it's a pretty profound skin irritant (not to mention toxic to the purported kidnapper who applies it to her skin with considerable regularity), and it's not like it's Get Smart Brand Knockout Gas. Like with all inhalation anaesthetics, putting someone out without killing them is a tough needle to thread. Chloroform (or, as G.O.B. used, ether) is dangerous!
At a bar? If there's any truth to this story, they're probably slipping drugs into their drinks (which, come to think of it, G.O.B. tried on Arrested Development as well!)
Medicine & Health
Comments
Hey! Welcome back for 2009. I enjoyed the Arrested Development references.
Posted by: Dave P | January 8, 2009 3:57 AM
Not to mention that it will render the wearer herself unconscious.
Posted by: Laure | January 8, 2009 6:30 PM
What about Colombian Devil's Breath, "the worst roofie you can imagine times a million." Apparently it's a dust blown into your face. http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=1119242704
Posted by: anonymouse | January 9, 2009 11:06 AM
i thought there was a really large therapuetic window between the effective doasge and the lethal dosage for ether. isn't that why it was such a popoular knockout agent for surgery back in the day?
Posted by: stokes_brolandish | January 11, 2009 10:15 PM
So if chloroform isn't really a molecule, then what does that make me (water)? I don't even have a carbon, let alone the same number of covalent bonds as chloroform ... I am so disillusioned ... I'm not even worthy of molecular status anymore :
Posted by: Water | January 20, 2009 9:27 PM
diethyl ether was a popular surgery anesthetic back when surgery was borning as a science because it's easy to synthesize - there was no real alternative, except chloroform, which supposedly is even worse.
on its own merits, ether is lousy stuff. volatile, flammable and heavier than air - never a good combination.
according to wikipedia its therapeutic index is about 1.5-2, meaning one can expect to see toxic effects at doses around that many times the therapeutic dose. you'd have to ask a doctor to find out if that's good or bad.
Posted by: Nomen Nescio | January 23, 2009 9:50 PM
ive never heard of chloroform for that purpose but i have heard never to motorboat a woman in brasil if her goods are blue ... it seems women are using certain belladonna alkaloids as a way to shanghai tourists
Posted by: jim duncan | January 27, 2009 2:40 PM
Your image does not display correctly for international readers.
Posted by: Lab Lemming | January 29, 2009 6:09 AM
You know, if it took that little chloroform to knock you out, my boss should've found me on the floor of the lab passed out by now, considering I use chloroform as a solvent as least once a week, which results in me having a beaker of it sitting on my workbench.
Of course, I'd think chloroform would be too heavy to really flow upwards reasonably and, y'know, get to the man's face. If it was capable of doing that...wouldn't it knock the woman wears it out long before her victim?
I hate when loony stories aren't even internally consistent!
Posted by: LtStorm | February 16, 2009 1:45 PM
:)
Posted by: jasmine | February 25, 2009 12:49 AM
This is the oldest myth on TV, only matched by the never out of ammo, 6 shooter that just keeps firing. Like other post, Chloroform doesn't knock you out that easy, you need a constant supply, like ether. (See the ancient ether machine shown in most Org. text books) However, Chloroform can produce heart attack, without warning, with a small dose and is carcinogenic. That's why they went back to using ether. I sure wish they'd take that out of TV shows, like they said in previous post, the amount needed to knock someone out would be much more than a rag full, on someone who'd probably resist the urge to breath it.
Posted by: Nate | May 4, 2009 2:16 AM