The Ether Epoch
Probably the first published account of the use of ether as a medicinal agent was made by Morris in a letter read before the Society of Physicians in London,[1] on December 18th, 1758, in which he advocates its use internally, and also as an external application.
[1] “Med. Obs. and Enq.” by the Society of Physicians in London, vol. 2, page 176, 1764.
In 1818, Faraday, as already stated, had called attention to the anæsthetic properties of ether, and showed that the vapour of sulphuric ether, when inhaled, produced effects similar to those of nitrous oxide. After Wells’ failure at Boston nothing further seems to have been done for a time to investigate the use of nitrous oxide as an anæsthetic.
Early experiments with ether
In 1839, William E. Clarke, a young medical student of Rochester, New York, was in the habit of amusing some of his friends, among whom was another student named W. T. G. Morton, by the inhalation of ether. Emboldened by his experiences, in 1842 he is said to have administered ether, by means of a towel, to a young woman named Hobbie, and during the period of insensibility which followed, one of her teeth was extracted by a dentist named Elijah Pope.
J. Marion Sims relates the following incident which he states happened in the year 1839:—“A number of youths in Anderson, South Carolina, were exhilarating themselves one day with the seductive vapour of ether. In their excitement they seized a young negro who was watching their antics, and compelled him to inhale the drug from a handkerchief which they held over his mouth and nose by main force. At first his struggles only added to the amusement of his captors, but they soon ceased as the boy became unconscious, stertorous and apparently dying. After an hour or two of anxiety on the part of the spectators he, however, revived, and was apparently no worse for his alarming experience.”
Long claims to have used ether in 1842
Three years after this incident one of the participators in the affair, named Wilhite, became the pupil of Dr. Crawford W. Long, a physician then practising in Jefferson, Jackson County, Georgia. Both the doctor and his pupils used occasionally to amuse themselves by inhaling ether, and the former often noticed that while thus excited he was insensible to blows and bruises. Wilhite recounted to him his memorable experience with the negro boy; and, in March, 1842, Long is said to have persuaded a patient, on whom he was about to operate for a small encysted tumour, to inhale ether until he was insensible. The patient consented, and the tumour was removed without any pain or accident. This memorable event was simply recorded by Long in his ledger thus:—“James Venable, 1842. Ether and excising tumour, $2.00.” Three months later he removed another tumour from the same patient in a similar way, and also performed three other operations during that year. He is said to have again repeated the experiment in 1843 and 1845, but the district in which he lived was so far removed from contact with the large cities and centres of thought, that the discovery remained unknown and unpublished until long after the anæsthetic properties of ether had been fully proved elsewhere. Long himself admits that he considered ether impracticable owing to the shortness of the anæsthetic state, and he therefore abandoned its use.
Marcy’s experiment
Towards the end of the year 1844, Dr. E. E. Marcy, a surgeon of Hartford, is said to have administered ether to a patient, and to have removed an encysted tumour about the size of a walnut from the scalp.
It is stated that Horace Wells was present at this operation, which was quite successful, but, being warned that ether was dangerous to life, the experimenters abandoned its use in favour of nitrous oxide gas.
Morton’s experiments with ether
In 1846, W. T. G. Morton (referred to previously) who had been in partnership with Wells as a dentist, and assisted him in the unfortunate experiment with nitrous oxide in Boston, now directed his attention to the finding of a more suitable anæsthetic for painless operations in dental surgery. After many unsuccessful attempts with various narcotics, Charles T. Jackson, a chemist of Boston, whose pupil he had been, suggested that he should try sulphuric ether, the properties of which had been known for so long.
Charles T. Jackson
Jackson’s story
It was about the end of September, 1846, that Jackson states he informed Morton that he had experimented on himself by inhaling ether on a folded towel. He found that he lost all power over himself, and fell back in his chair in a state of curious sleep. Morton, however, tells another story, and relates how, having procured some chemically pure ether on September 30th, 1846, he shut himself in a room alone and inhaled the vapour. He states: “I found the ether so strong that it partly suffocated me, but produced no decided effect. I then saturated my handkerchief and inhaled it from that. I looked at my watch and soon lost consciousness. As I recovered I felt a numbness in my limbs, and a sensation like nightmare. I thought for a moment I should die in that state, but at length I felt a slight tingling of the blood in the end of my third finger, and made an effort to press it with my thumb, but without success. At the second effort I touched it, but there seemed to be no sensation. I attempted to rise from my chair, but fell back, and looked immediately at my watch and found that I had been insensible between seven and eight minutes.”