Guthrie, Samuel, 1782–1848, American physician, b. Brimfield, Mass. In Sackets Harbor, N.Y., where he settled after serving as surgeon in the War of 1812, he invented a percussion powder and a punch lock for exploding it, thus making obsolete the flintlock musket. In 1831 he discovered chloroform, anticipating by a few months its discovery by Eugène Soubeiran in France and Justus von Liebig in Germany.
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