Similarly - films depicting kidnapping people using chloroform as an instant knockout drug.
Is there any truth behind this theory?
The other big issue was flammability.
Ether still takes enough time to reduce consciousness that you have a good minute or two (minimum) of struggle. It's not "towel over face, muffled screaming, then sleepytime". But an attacker with advantage of surprise and a decent grapple could usually get the target dosed before they could break free.
When I was in college and a freshman, I was told the urban legend about the "ether bunny". The story about a freshman who finds out his roommate has been drugging and having sex with him using ether.
I wasn't very knowledgeable about these stories or urban legends in general so when I was home for Christmas vacation, I told my Dad about it, and he started laughing and said it was an old college urban legend but when he was told it (in the 1960's) as a freshman they used chloroform instead of ether. He mentioned some other details about the story that were changed due to the times, but that was one point that was clearly changed over time, possibly for the same reason.
https://erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Ether.shtml
I've never consumed or inhaled it myself. However from someone who I know drank it, said the high is rapid and intense. Basically, it's enough to get you arrested for a public intox, and by the time you're at the police station, you're completely sober, save for your breath smelling like gasoline.
Another source about consumption of ether in 19th c Ireland : https://www.newscientist.com/letter/mg19125630-800-bring-bac...
https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(11)...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ether_addiction
As a final edit: It's probably a really bad idea to inhale or drink ether.. but it is definitely drinkable.
As others have noted, recording equipment doesn't register these levels reliably, so watching a recording does not reflect the actual experience.
There are exceptions. The famous shootout scene from "Heat" does a surprisingly good job at conveying just how deafening gunfire really is close up, for a movie. Although even that is much milder than it would be IRL, due to use of blanks and the aforementioned equipment limitations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL9fnVtz_lc (shooting starts around 4:20)
Please share/blog these! I too have several degenerate chemistry undergrad stories.
> The poor efficacy of DMSO in assisting drug translocation through skin
Yep. During one particularly sleep-deprived finals week, and after recently learning about DMSO's transdermal transportation abilities, my friend and I tried making caffeine skin patches. It worked...vaguely increasing alertness. However, it itched and burned worse than just about anything I've ever experienced.
Also I can concur that chloroform isn't some instant knock-out juice. But one time, a lab mate and I were running massive columns and had accumulated several hundred liters of DCM (dichloromethane) fractions in flasks (yes, it was a loong day). Despite the walk-in hoods running at full bore, by the end of the day, coworker and I were loopy, giggly idiots. Was it above OSHA PEL? Possibly, but probably not. I think the disinhibition was a combination of energy drinks, fatigue+boredom of running hundreds of fractions, and suggestibility, as much as it was the fumes. But my lab manager did walk in at one point and immediately recoiled from the fumes (which we were nose-deaf to at that point).
I don't know whether it's true or not, but I remember a chemistry lecturer telling me that you don't need to worry about terrible smells in the lab, our noses are sensitive to extremely miniscule levels of chemicals. It's when the levels are so high that they have overpowered our senses and knocked out our sense of smell, that's when you need to worry! A wonderfully paradoxical piece of advice...
There's also things which are toxic at the same levels as olfaction, and of course there toxins which are dangerous by the time you have smelled them, or you lack the gene to smell. Most really smelly things aren't acutely toxic like that though. Take DMS (dimethyl sulfide, byproduct of Swern oxidation. Smells like boiling cabbage at low concentration, and liquid ass at high concentration. If you are running a Swern in a fume hood, you are likely quite well-contained even if you've made the whole lab smell like a cesspit.
When we ran cyanation at the kilo scale, you better believe we had HCN detectors all over the place, wore full-face respirators, etc.
"Gattermann (Ann. 357, 318 (1907)) recommends that the operator smoke during the preparation [of HCN], for he found that a trace of hydrogen cyanide is sufficient to give the tobacco smoke a highly characteristic flavor. This preliminary warning is useful in case of leaky apparatus or a faulty hood" - from Org Syn http://www.orgsyn.org/demo.aspx?prep=CV1P0314
Nit: it can't actually recover from freezing solid. It just has lowered the freezing point of the remaining liquid to below the temperatures it's going to encounter.
>> On an organismal level, they are completely frozen to death — their heart stops beating and breathing ceases. Image via Facebook
>> The frog’s death-defying trick actually comes down to one simple factor: nucleating proteins. When the frog’s skin begins to freeze, these proteins cause the water within the frog’s blood to freeze first, which in turn serves as a vacuum for most of the water out of the cells. Simultaneously, their bodies pump out large amounts of glucose to serve as stuffing material, which prevents the cells from collapsing.
>> Essentially, frogs fill their bodies full of sugar to keep themselves alive through winter. When warm temperatures melt the snow around their hibernacula, frogs slowly thaw back to life. Water melts and returns to the bloodstream, begins circulating, and restarts their heart and breathing. Within an hour or so the frog returns to normal life, completely unscathed.
Just wild!
[0] https://roaring.earth/frogs-literally-freeze-during-winter-a...
But "completely frozen" isn't quite right: if you slowly lowered the temperature of a "frozen" frog enough the tiny bit of water still within the cells would freeze, and the frog would die.
Microwave assisted reactions in DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide) have become increasingly popular in recent years as a way to speed up chemical reactions. However, there are several reasons why this method should be used with caution, especially when it comes to safety and health concerns.
One of the main dangers associated with using DMSO, and other polar aprotic solvents such as DMF and DMAc, is their ability to dissolve and transport small molecules through the skin and into the bloodstream. These solvents can permeate through traditional protective barriers like nitrile, vinyl, and latex gloves, making them ineffective in protecting the user from potential harm.
When working with these solvents, it is crucial to match the glove to the solvent. Aliphatic polymers such as LDPE or laminates like mylar (aluminized polyester) are recommended for strong solvents like DMSO to provide adequate protection.
Furthermore, DMSO is highly flammable, which can be a significant safety hazard when heated in a microwave. The high temperatures generated by the microwave can cause the DMSO to break down and release toxic fumes, which can be harmful to both the experimenter and the environment.
Reminds me of NileRed's attempts to create enormously stinky substances [1][2]. In one of the videos he said he's basically smell-blind.
https://archive.org/details/barthes-world-of-wrestling/mode/...
And “fake” may cover the results of the matches but it doesn’t cover how intense it is on their bodies. Olympic wrestling is probably a far easier sport on the body.
According to Ignition! by John Clark, high-purity ethanol used for rocket fuel undergoes a similar phenomenon when in storage tanks near rocket scientists and Navy personnel. Interesting to see that this also occurs in the proximity of undergrads. Study operators claimed that dissolving the ethanol in H2O, or, preferably, lime juice and/or soda water, merits further study.
But yes, I would also be interested in reading that continued series.
More investigations are warranted.
But then around that time some better stuff began to trickle in - instead of 3-5 Mb HDDs, you could get a whopping 30 Mb! Those were sealed and required no cleaning... but the legend goes that, in one such place, it occurred to the engineers that accounting doesn't know that. So, instead, they submitted a request to procure more ethanol for cleaning, on the basis that a 30 Mb hard drive would obviously need 6 times as much for servicing as a 5 Mb one does. It was approved, and the arrangement lasted until the head of the department caught someone drunk and traced the source.
(Another version of this legend has a slight variation in that the engineers submitted a request for more than 6x, deliberately making a mistake in math to make it look like a clumsy attempt to get more. Accounting promptly "caught" it and gave them a stern lecture about how they're not getting even one drop over what the proper number required... i.e. 6x.)
Oh yeah, for the observer gallery: The reason DMSO (and DMF, DMAc, HF, to an extent haloforms, and polar aprotic solvents in general) are dangerous is that they can dissolve and transport small molecules (under 1000 daltons, possibly more) through your skin and into the bloodstream. They go straight through nitrile, vinyl, and latex gloves. You need to match the glove to the solvent. For these strong solvents, you want aliphatic polymers (LDPE) or laminates (mylar aka aluminized polyester).
Actually one of the best protection schemes is the shoulder-length polyethylene gloves used for ...ahem... bovine obstetrics, with nitrile over that for grip and to keep the cow glove in place. Looks hilarious but great for pouring nasty solutions or weighing dusty powders.
https://www.amazon.com/livestocktool-com-Disposable-Artifici...
It's even more insidious than that -- it is not only your fingertips that smell, since it penetrates the skin so readily. Pure DMSO itself is odorless, but it is metabolized into DMS, which stinks unbelievably strongly of garlic. The DMS has a very high systematic half-life (38 hours!!!) and remains dissolved in the blood, meaning your blood itself will stink of garlic for days after exposure.
The gut punch, however, is that the victim is reportedly unable to smell it (probably because their olfactory tissue is literally awash in DMS), so they don't realize they smell like walking garlic bread.
I've thought about trying it but have visions of it leaching the dye from my clothing and transporting it into my bloodstream. the garlic wouldn't make me many friends, but dissolving poisons is scarier.
I'm interested . . . is it because of the risk of blow-ups?
Based on an unpublished study of about 4 degenerate chemistry undergrads:
So, in order to incapacitate someone you would have to force them to do really unpleasant for a long time, in which case you might as well choke them out, and the victim would regain consciousness quickly. And as a sleep aid it would likely need to be ingested, would induce sleep but not maintain it (i.e. wake up shortly), and would leave the user reeking of gross chloroform for long after.Join us for our continued lecture series, covering topics such as: