ABSTRACT

It is an unfortunate fact that the progressive introduction of major regulatory controls on and evaluations of medicinal products before they are placed on the market has been stimulated by major public health disasters. In Britain, following the introduction in 1847 of chloroform as an anaesthetic, there was considerable concern about its cardiac safety (well over 100 fatalities by 1864) and there were calls for setting up of a committee to enquire ‘into the uses and the physiological, therapeutical and toxicological effects of chloroform’.