And yet it has been reserved for the simple inhalation of a -a revival of the erewhile forgotten and despised gas66 pneumatic medicine,"to achieve in surgery that for which surgeons have for centuries laboured, and laboured in vain.

Sulphuric ether a subtle fluid, obtained by the action of concentrated sulphuric acid on rectified spirit, colourless, very volatile, pungent in taste, and of a penetrating odour-has long been used in medicine; narcotic, when taken in large doses, either by the mouth or by inhalation; in smaller doses, stimulant, antispasmodic, and carminative. "In hysteria, asthma, palpitation, gastrodynia, nervous colic, and the like, it is an invaluable remedy, especially when united with opium."* Many a time has the vapour of ether been inhaled for the relief of oppressed lungs; many a time has the sought relief been thus obtained; and just so many times has the discovery of the wonderful anodyne properties of this gas, as affecting all bodily suffering, been brushed past and overlooked. Philosophers may often be likened to men diving into deep waters in search of what is floating on the surface, and against which, as they emerge, they may often almost brush their cheek. Medical philosophers were busy seeking to alleviate pain; prosecuting search after search, and devising scheme after scheme; and yet were in the daily or at least familiar use of what, if pushed only a little farther, would have gained the end in view. And something less than medical philosophers had gone a step nearer the discovery. Certain medical chrysalises, commonly called apothecary shop-boys, have long been in the habit of testing each new comer to their sphere of labour, by his power of sustaining the vapour of ether. The novice may have passed an inductive examination satisfactorily as to general acquirements, the indenture may have been duly signed and lodged, the fee may have been duly paid; the apron may have been donned, and a place at the counter appropriated; but an ordeal had still to be passed through. In some remote corner of the shop, and at some lone hour, his impish brethren of the craft resolve themselves into a mysterious tribunal, to elicit his grade of manliness; they form a circle round him, and, holding to his mouth and nose a sponge, handkerchief, or towel, saturated with ether, through which he must breathe, they watch the effects. If he soon faint and fall, he is placed low in the list, as freeman of the shop; but if he long resist the vapour, he rises in estimation, and at once has assigned to him a high place among his compeers. It is odd that such tricksy atoms of humanity never thought of pinching, puncturing, or cauterizing their hapless victims that fell and lay in a swoon. If they had, some one of them might have proved the lucky

* CHRISTISON.

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stumbler on the strangely anodyne properties of what they, as well as their betters, had so long regarded, in full doses, as a

mere narcotic.

An old gentleman, too, was near it, some forty years ago.* He had discovered that the fumes of ether could lull him into forgetfulness of the pains and discomforts of a bustling and a checquered life. He was a man of research, in his way; curious in beds, and baths, and professing to cure disease better than his fellows. But he was loose in principle, as well as weak in science, and no doubt, most deservedly, had many roughnesses in life which he could wish to rub away. His mode was this. Obtaining an ounce or two of ether, he leisurely sniffed up its vapour, according to the plan of Dr. Pearson; sitting softly the while, and manifestly enjoying a time of calmness and repose. And, on being interrogated, he was in the habit of answering, "soothing, sir, soothing, to an immeasurable degree." In this placebo for the cares of life, he was in the habit of indulging many times a day; and again, it is to be regretted that some experimental pinching or puncturing had not been applied, in his listless moments-the more especially as there seems good reason to believe that no fitter subject could well have been got for such experimenting, according to the old adage, of " in corpore vili," &c. He had discovered that the fumes of ether could relieve, temporarily, from the pains of a mind ill at ease; but he was not deemed worthy of knowing that it could still more wonderfully assuage the body's worst suffering.

This discovery Providence has, in inscrutable wisdom, held back till the present day; and with its divulgement the names of two Americans are prominently associated, Doctors Jackson and Morton, the one a physician and chemist, the other a dentist, in Boston. To the former, the chief merit of the discovery seemed due, the latter having been but auxiliary to the testing by actual experiment. On the 13th of November, 1846, Dr. Jackson writes to the French Academy of Sciences, stating that he wished to communicate to that body a discovery which he had made, of much importance, as a means of relieving suffering humanity, and very valuable to the art of surgery. “Five or six years before, he had observed that inhalation of the vapour of pure sulphuric ether had the power of inducing a peculiar state of insensibility. He had inhaled it himself, partly for the mere purpose of experiment, and partly for the relief of a very unpleasant affection of the chest, which had followed the inhalation of chlorine. Struck with the thought that this trance or insensibility might be turned to a good account, he advised Mr.

* Lancet, No. 1223, p. 164.

Morton to make trial of it in the pulling of teeth. This Mr. Morton was not slow to do, and had the satisfaction, by means of the ether, of pulling teeth without pain, and of finding no unpleasant consequences attendant on his experiments. Mr. Morton subsequently, at the request of Dr. Jackson, proceeded to the public hospital of Massachusetts, and there administered the vapour to a patient about to undergo a painful surgical operation; and the result was again prosperous-no pain during the operation, and a good recovery. Then came further trials in the hospital; fast enough, and all successful-no pain, and "the recoveries remarkably good, apparently on account of no shock having been sustained by the nervous system."

On the 28th of November, Dr. Bigelow writes to his friend Dr. Boott, in London, announcing the "new anodyne process," and giving instances of its success.

On the 14th of December, Dr. Boott sends Dr. Bigelow's letter to Mr. Liston, naturally anxious to make so important a communication without loss of time to one so pre-eminent in the operative department of surgery. And that distinguished surgeon, worthy of the confidence reposed in him, speedily put the matter to test in the hospital of University College. His success was most complete, on the 21st of December.

On the morning of the 23d of December, his former pupil, Professor Miller of Edinburgh, was not a little surprised, doubtless, to receive the following epistle, which, having obtained, we venture to make public, availing ourselves of the permission of one of the parties at least. It is very characteristic of the writer, dashed off, in hurry and excitement, and showing a fine generous enthusiasm; moreover, it may be regarded with something of historic interest, under the circumstances. The writer will, we hope, pardon us for the liberty we take with a private communication, which bears the form, indeed, rather of a despatch than of an ordinary letter. It is verbatim, as follows:

"HURRAH!

Rejoice! Mesmerism, and its professors, have met with a heavy blow, and great discouragement.' An American dentist has used ether, (inhalation of it) to destroy sensation in his operations, and the plan has succeeded in the hands of Warren, Hayward, and others, in Boston. Yesterday, I amputated a thigh, and removed, by evulsion, both sides of the great toe nail, without the patient's being aware of what was doing, so far as regards pain. The amputation-man heard, he says, what we said, and was conscious, but felt neither the pain of the incisions, nor that of tying the vessels. In short, he had no sensation of pain in the operating theatre. I mean to use it to-day, in a case

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of stone. In six months no operation will be performed without this previous preparation.* It must be carefully set about. The ether must be washed, and purified of its sulphureous acid and alcohol. Shall I desire Squire, a most capital and ingenious chemist, to send you a tool for the purpose? It is only the bottom of Nooth's apparatus, with a sort of funnel above, with bits of sponge, and, at the other hole, a flexible tube. Rejoice! “Thine always,

"R. L."

This was read by Professor Miller to his class, within an hour after its receipt; and a somewhat similar announcement was also made by Professor Syme, in the after part of the day. A few days afterwards, Professor Simpson had occasion to visit London; and, witnessing the effects of ether in hospital practice, obtained the best instrument for inhalation he could then procure. This apparatus, speedily after his return to Edinburgh, was put to the test in an amputation performed by Dr. Duncan in the Royal Infirmary of that city, and proved entirely successful; the operation having been completed without the infliction of any pain. In due time Mr. Liston supplied Professor Miller with the promised "tool;" and that apparatus also proved eminently successful in sundry cases in the Infirmary, astonishing both patient and practitioner. Professor Simpson was, with accustomed energy, not slow to prosecute the discovery in connexion with his own peculiar department; still with success. Professor Syme seemed less eager than his colleagues to lend confidence to the ether, and his first public trials were unsatisfactory. On the use of efficient apparatus, however, he too became a painless operator. Instrument makers, medical practitioners, and medical students, seemed struck with a fever of invention as to inhaling apparatus ; in rapid succession many varieties were constructed and tried; some with unsatisfactory results, but the great majority all succeeding in the main object-procuring the forgetfulness of pain. From the metropolis the news quickly spread throughout the provinces; for the papers of the day, not unnaturally, had lent their power towards dissemination of the good news for humanity; and in Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness-by this time, doubtless throughout all Scotland-the truth of the at first scarcely believed reports became speedily attested by the voice of actual experience. Already, by many hundreds of cases, the efficiency of inhaled ether in averting or subduing pain, its applica

* Of course, this is not to be considered as Mr. Liston's deliberate opinion; but just the first flash of enthusiasm, at once natural and becoming, in the circum

stances.

VOL. VII.

NO. XIII.

M

bility to the majority of cases for operation, and the safety with which it may, in proper hands, be administered, are facts-assailed, but not overthrown.

Thus went the narrative of the discovery, up to the beginning of March. Then, however, a little new light dawned upon the subject. A Mr. Horace Wells, of Connecticut, United States, dentist, is announced as having practised letheonizing since October, 1844; beginning upon himself, using both nitrous oxide and sulphuric ether in his inhalations, and ultimately preferring the former. At the first it excited, as "the laughing gas" is well known to do; but after some time a thoroughly sedative effect was induced, less transient than that of ether. He did not stumble on the thing by accident, but was led to it by a process of reasoning, as he thus explains :—

"Reasoning from analogy, I was led to believe that surgical operations might be performed without pain, by the fact that an individual when much excited from ordinary causes may receive severe wounds without manifesting the least pain; as, for instance, the man who is engaged in combat may have a limb severed from his body, after which he testifies that it was attended with no pain at the time; and so the man who is intoxicated with spirituous liquor may be treated severely without his manifesting pain, and his frame seems in this state to be more tenacious of life than under ordinary circumstances. By these facts I was led to inquire if the same result would not follow by the inhalation of some exhilarating gas, the effects of which would pass off immediately, leaving the system none the worse for its use. I accordingly procured some nitrous oxide gas, resolving to make the first experiment on myself by having a tooth extracted, which was done without any painful sensations. I then performed the same operation for twelve or fifteen others, with the like results; this was in November, 1844."

His discovery he had no wish to keep concealed, or to cover by a patent. He at once disclosed it to the members of the profession with whom he came in contact, and, amongst others, to Drs. Jackson and Morton; making a journey to Boston for the express purpose. Dr. Warren of that city made trial of the experiment; but, somehow, his first attempts failed, and he desisted. Drs. Jackson and Morton professed themselves incredulous; Mr. Wells fell sick; and so the discovery lay dormant for awhile. Drs. Jackson and Morton, however, though incredulous, were not oblivious; they seem to have been brooding over the matter; and at length emerged from obscurity in the borrowed light of their more single-minded countryman. What degree of credit attaches to these gentlemen, we shall leave others to judge. The first mention of their names in this country was associated with very