And before anyone gets big ideas about the chloroform, it is not pure chloroform; it is generally contaminated by phosgene, which is truly terrible stuff.
During a wasted youth I poured over hundreds of The Hardy Boys Casefiles, where they'd receive and recover from a traumatic brain injury 3-5 nights a week (getting "knocked out").
Thanks to your comment I now know the other nights, where they were not rendered unconscious by blunt trauma, but rather through a rag of chloroform, they were probably inhaling phosgene too.
Those boys were sure putting their futures at risk!
Hah, same. Between The Hardy Boys and silly TV crime dramas I think a lot of kids got the wrong impression about getting "knocked out". It turns out that pretty much anything that can cause unconsciousness is also likely to cause death or serious permanent injury.