GUTHRIE
GUTHRIE
Silliman at least as early as August,
1831, and the discovery was several
months previous as Guthrie states, in
his communication, that "during the
last six months a greater number of
persons have drunk of the solution of
chloric ether, not only freely, but fre-
quently, to the point of intoxication."
This effectively and conclusively dis- poses of the claims of Liebig and Soubeiran to priority of discovery of chloroform, since Liebig's discovery, viz.: the production of chloroform by the action of potassium hydroxide on chloral, was first published in Novem- ber, 1831, a month later than the date of Guthrie's paper ("Liebig's Annalen," vol. clxii, p. 161).
Soubeiran, whose method was iden- tical with that of Guthrie and apparent- ly closely contemporaneous, claims to
have published his paper on "Ether
Bichlorique" in October, 1831. For-
tunately for Dr. Guthrie, the desire
of Liebig to establish his own claim
led to his careful investigation of the date
of publication of the October number
of the "Annals de Chemie et de Phy-
sique" for 1831. That it could not have
been printed in October, 1831, is definite-
ly proved by the fact that the metero-
logical report for the entire month of
October is printed in the October num-
ber, which Liebig discovered did not
appear until January, 1832.
From a paper by M. P. Hatfield in the
"Chicago Clinic."
Mem. of Dr. Samuel Guthrie and the history
of the discovery of chloroform. Chicago,
1887.
Trials of a Public Benefactor. Dr. Nathan
P. Rice, N. York, 1859.
Littells "Living Age," March 18, 1848.
