ABSTRACT
I. INTRODUCTION The advent of modern anesthesia occurred in the 1840s, when the clinical value of ether and chloroform was first described. These were the most popular anesthetic agents throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth century, even though they had significant practical disadvantages (1). Ether is highly combustible, irritates the respiratory tract, and has appreciable solubility in blood, which results in a slow onset of action and slow recovery. Chloroform is a cardiorespiratory depressant, has arrhythmogenic effects, and is both nephrotoxic and hepatotoxic. The organ toxicity of chloroform has been ascribed to bioactivation in liver and kidneys to reactive species that interact with macromolecules and cause cellular necrosis (2).
