ETHYL CHLORIDE, prepared from hydrogen chloride and ethyl alcohol, is a gas at room temperature but is stored and sold under pressure in glass bottles fitted with trigger-controlled spray nozzles, as a colourless, mobile liquid with a characteristic ethereal smell, and sweet, burning taste, which boils at 12.5° C and has the formula The vapour burns with a green flame. Chloryl and kelene are trade names. Anestile is a mixture of ethyl and methyl chlorides. Somnoform is composed of the two chlorides with ethyl bromide.
(b) As a general anaesthetic, it is usually given in doses of 3-5 cu.cm. in a closed inhaler. As regards safety it is probably inter mediate between nitrous oxide and ether. Short administrations produce an anaesthesia similar in type to that of nitrous oxide with an equally rapid loss of consciousness, a quick recovery and slight after-effects.
Ethyl chloride like chloroform as a general anaesthetic has its popularity chiefly in Europe. On the whole it seems to be more dangerous than ether and nitrous oxide but less so than chloro form. It does not produce the muscular relaxation effected by chloroform, which is desirable especially in protracted operations. Moreover, it is inflammable. Ethyl chloride has been recom mended for anaesthesia of short duration in the belief . that it was less dangerous than and as satisfactory as nitrous oxide.
Longer administrations approximate more to the ether type of anaesthesia, ethyl chloride being, like chloroform and ether and unlike gas, a lipoid solvent. Its effect on the circulatory and respiratory systems is slightly stimulating, causing flushing of the face, acceleration of the pulse rate by Io-20 beats per minute, and a rise in systolic blood pressure of 1 o to 20 millimetres, together with deeper and more rapid breathing. (See ANAESTHESIA.) (c) It is also used in mechanical refrigeration (see REFRIGERA TION AND ICE MANUFACTURE) in place of ammonia or sulphur di oxide, because of relatively low pressure and non-toxic qualities.