Clerihews for Chloroform

A Clerihew is a four-line comic poem with a rigid rhyming scheme, aabb, but no metric requirements. This poetic form was invented by E. C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley (1875 –1956), British humorist and author. Bentley’s Clerihews always began with the name of a famous person or character to create a rhyming challenge. The remaining three lines “roasted” the figure, sometimes in a historical context. If Bentley hoped he was inventing a poetic form to replace the limerick, he was unsuccessful, since most anesthesiologists have never heard of a Clerihew. I became aware of them when I was loaned a delightful book entitledThe Lost Clerihews of Paul Ingram.1 Below are six Clerihews that I composed about individuals who played a significant role in the early history of chloroform anesthesia. With each is a reference pertinent to the Clerihew so that this collection could serve as a basis for an anesthesia history journal club.
Source: Anesthesiology - Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: research