[onedance0204]

Hi,

I don’t know if this is the right place to ask this question, but I’ll try anyway.

I’m writing a Detective novel where the killer kidnaps his victims before murdering them. He first takes them out with an anaesthetic, but I still don’t know which one he could use. I first thought about Chloroform, since it is commonly used in movies or novels. However, I read that in reality, Chloroform isn’t very efficient and that it can take several minutes before the victim is completely out (apparently it can also kill the person if it is inhaled in high dosage). So the killer would need a quick and efficient anaesthetic that he can buy or make easily (he doesn’t have a lot of chemical knowledge either). 

Do you have any suggestions?

Thank you,

Rose

[Corribus]

I think your first criterion is how the anesthetic would be applied: inhalation or injection.

You are right, in the movies the criminal soaks a rag in some chloroform and presses it to the victim's nose and in 0.5s the victim is unconscious. But it doesn't really work like that, even if the victim was breathing deeply, which probably they wouldn't be. Many inhaled anesthetics in use these days are still halogenated hydrocarbons like isofluorane.

Forcibly making someone unconscious with an anaesthetic in perpetration of a crime would be difficult, risky business. All anesthetics will kill someone if the dosage is wrong, and the correct dosage is at the least a function of body weight. The criminal would have to be able to do some quick math on the fly to calculate and administer the correct dosage. Maybe the criminal is an anesthesiologist?

Another factor that would have to be considered is the length of action. In surgery, multiple anesthetics are often used - for instance, one quick acting drug to start anesthesia, and another longer acting one to maintain it.

[Mitch]

I'd stick to using chloroform, isofluorane if the criminal wanted to be nice and not leave the victim with a massive headache when they wake up.