And Then There Were None vocabulary

a geminal diol with the formula C₂H₃Cl₃O₂. It is a colorless solid. It has limited use as a sedative and hypnotic pharmaceutical drug. [...]

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a bitter-tasting, neutrally colored, somewhat caustic compound that slowed the rate of the heart and thus made the subject singularly calm—or, if used as it was in many saloons, almost comatose and an easy target for robbery or kidnapping.

_{Caleb Carr. The Alienist, p.31 (1994)}