User:Hshanley/sandbox

This is my sandbox for Chem 275 wikipedia project on chloral Hydrate.

Pharmacology

Metabolism

Chloral Hydrate is metabolized in the body in both the hepatic and extrahepatic tissues.

Chloral hydrate is metabolized in the body into trichloroethanol and trichloroacetic acid. Trichloroethanol is the active metabolite of the choral hydrate molecule. Both chloral hydrate and trichloroethanol inhibit alcohol dehydrogenases in the body by competitively binding to their active sites. When chloral hydrate interacts with the alcohol dehydrogenase molecules, it will be metabolized into tricholorethanol. Chloral Hydrate is also able to interact with aldehyde dehydrogenases in teh body. When chloral hydrate interacts with these enzymes, trichloroacetic acid is produced instead.Trichloroethanol will go through a conjugation process in the liver and then will be elimated renally.

Pharmacodynamics

Chloral hydrate is structurally and somewhat pharmacodynamically similar to ethchlorvynol, a pharmaceutical developed during the 1950's that was marketed as both a sedative and a hypnotic under the trade name Placidyl. In 1999, Abbott, the sole manufacturer of the drug in the United States at the time, decided to discontinue the product. After Abbott ceased production, the drug remained available for about a year. Despite the fact that it could have been manufactured generically, no other company in the United States chose to do so. The metabolite of chloral hydrate exerts its pharmacological properties via enhancing the GABA receptor complex and therefore is similar in action to benzodiazepines, nonbenzodiazepines and barbiturates. It can be moderately addictive, as chronic use is known to cause dependency and withdrawal symptoms. The chemical can potentiate various anticoagulants and is weakly mutagenic in vitro and in vivo.

Chloral Hydrate is a sedative drug without any analgesic properties. If the drug is taken by mouth, the average time it takes for a person to be sedated is approximately 30 minutes. The effects typically last for around 1-2 hours, however motor imbalance may last for several hours beyond this time frame.

Chloral Hydrate and Ethanol

When consumed with ethanol, chloral hydrate can have some very serious and dangerous effects. This is due to the fact that the consumption of chloral hydrate will alter the normal alchol metabolism. When ethanol is ingested, it first is broken down by alcohol dehydrogenase enzymes in the body. Chloral Hydrate will compete with alcohol which is consumed to be processed by alcohol dehydrogenase enzymes. Additionally, the primary metabolite of chloral hydrate, trichloroethanol, will also compete to bind to alcohol dehyrogenases.This competition between the molecules will ultimately lead to a slower breakdown of the ethanol that is consumed because less of it will be able to bind to the enzyme active sites. The combination of alcohol with chloral hydrate, therefore, can lead to severe intoxication by elevating blood alcohol levels, which may lead to coma or death.

Society and culture

Chloral hydrate was used as one of the earliest synthetic drugs to treat insomnia. In 1912, Bayer introduced the drug phenobarbital under the brand name Luminal. In the 1930s, pentobarbital and secobarbital (better known by their original brand names Nembutal and Seconal, respectively) were synthesized. Chloral hydrate was still prescribed, although its predominance as a sedative and a hypnotic was largely eclipsed by barbiturates.

In 1897, Bram Stoker's epistolary novel Dracula, one of its characters, Doctor John Seward, recorded his use and his molecular formula in his phonographic diary:

I cannot but think of Lucy, and how different things might have been. If I don't sleep at once, chloral, the modern Morpheus— C₂HCl₃O . H₂O! I should be careful not to let it grow into a habit. No I shall take none to-night! I have thought of Lucy, and I shall not dishonor her by mixing the two.

In the conclusion of Edith Wharton's 1905 novel The House of Mirth, Lily Bart, the novel's heroine, becomes addicted to chloral hydrate and overdoses on the substance:

She put out her hand and measured the soothing drops into a glass; but as she did so, she knew they would be powerless against the supernatural lucidity of her brain. She had long since raised the dose to its highest limit, but to-night she felt she must increase it. She knew she took a slight risk in doing so; she remembered the chemist's warning. If sleep came at all, it might be a sleep without waking.

Chloral Hydrate also played an important role in Agatha Christie's 1939 novel, And Then There Were None. In the novel, Mrs. Rogers is killed with an overdose of chloral hydrate after a lethal amount was put into her brandy:

During recent bouts of pain, I had been ordered a sleeping draught -Chloral Hydrate. It had been easy for me to suppress this until I had a lethal amount in my possession. When Rogers brought up some brandy for his wife,he set it down on a table and in passing that table I put the stuff into the brandy.

Sidney Sheldon's 1994 medical thriller novel, Nothing Lasts Forever, documents a speculated murder done using chloral hydrate. The novel describes the metabolism of chloral hydrate in the body:

" 'Chloral hydrate turns into trichloroethylene!' Paige said triumphantly. "Mallory lied when he said he didn't go back into the apartment with Kat. He put chloral hydrate in her drink. It has no taste when you mix it with alcohol, and it only takes a few minutes for it to work."