chloroform
n. uncountablen. a clear, heavy liquid with a sweet smell that was used in the past to make people sleep during surgery. It is very dangerous and is not used in medicine today.
n. a volatile, colorless, dense liquid with a sweet, ether-like odor, used historically as an anesthetic. It is highly toxic and has been largely replaced by safer modern agents.
The doctor used chloroform to help the patient sleep.
Before the invention of safer anesthetics, surgeons often used chloroform to numb patients during long operations.
While once a revolutionary tool in the history of medicine, chloroform is now strictly controlled due to its potential to cause cardiac arrest and its high flammability in surgical environments.
Borrowed from French chloroforme, portmanteau of terchloride (tertiary chloride, trichloride) and formyle (CH, an obsolete radical of formic acid) by Jean-Baptiste Dumas, from 1834. By surface analysis, chloro- + -form.