Over sixty years after the discovery of chloroform anaesthesia, doctors would finally get a conclusive answer about its risks. And as we head towards the 200th anniversary of William Morton’s ether demonstration, new problems with the modern inhaled anaesthetics we use are being...

Chloroform could stop patients breathing if you accidentally gave too much, but could it also cause the heart to suddenly stop beating? John Snow thought it did, but doctors in Scotland disagreed. Through the second half of the 19th century, the commissions and committees that investigated...

Chloroform's ease of use and lack of side effects compared to ether made it an attractive choice for doctors and patients, but as its use spread across the country, doctors and dentists using it would discover it could have sinister consequences both for their patients, and for themselves, and...