The possibility of painless operations began to be imagined about this time, but not much serious experimental work seems to have been attempted. In 1842, Dr. Long, of Athens, Georgia, U.S.A., claimed to have removed a tumour from a patient under the influence of ether, and about the same time Dr. Jackson, of Boston, U.S.A., also professed to have carried out successfully a similar operation. These experiments have not been rigorously established, but there is no question about the authenticity of the next. Horace Wells, a dentist of Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.A., suffering from toothache, resolved to experiment on himself. He induced a colleague named Rigg to draw a molar while he was under the influence of nitrous oxide gas, and did not feel the pain of the extraction. This was in 1844. Wells then, in association with another dentist, named William Thomas Green Morton, started to demonstrate the discovery publicly. The first exhibition was an ignominious failure, and the two pioneers were derided as impostors. Wells suffered so severely from his disappointment on this occasion that he died insane a few years later. Morton, however, continued his investigations, and he and the Dr. Jackson already mentioned worked together on ether, and assured themselves of its anæsthetic powers by experiments on animals. Morton then inhaled it himself on September 30, 1846, and awoke from deep unconsciousness a few minutes later, convinced of the reality of his discovery. Just then a patient rang the bell. It was towards evening, but the visitor was shown into the surgery. He was in agony with the toothache, and begged the doctor to mesmerise him in the hope of getting some relief. The nerve was so sore, he said, that he could not summon up courage to have the tooth drawn. Morton, greatly excited, told his patient that he could do better for him than mesmerising him. He could take the tooth out without pain if he would consent. The sufferer agreed eagerly, and Morton, with two assistants, proceeded to operate. A handkerchief, saturated with ether, was applied to the mouth and nostrils, and unconsciousness was produced almost immediately. A tooth, a firmly-rooted bicuspid, was extracted without arousing the patient. Then followed a minute of intense fear. The man remained motionless, and Morton felt convinced he was dead. Seizing a glass of water he dashed it into the face of this first subject, who at once revived. “Are you ready to have your tooth drawn?” asked Morton. Rather hesitating assent was given, and then the extracted tooth was shown to the patient in the chair. His name, which ought to be recorded in the annals of surgery, was Eben Frost.
On October 16, 1846, a tumour was removed from a patient at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. Morton administered the ether, and Dr. Collins Warren, the senior surgeon, operated. The patient made no sound, and after he recovered consciousness declared that he had experienced no pain. “Gentlemen, this is no humbug,” said Dr. Warren to the other surgeons who had witnessed the operation. Morton died in 1868.
The first operation under ether in Great Britain was performed by Liston at University College Hospital in December, 1846. In January, 1847, James Young Simpson commenced to employ it in midwifery cases in Edinburgh. Simpson had already acquired a high reputation as a gynecologist, and was an enthusiast in his profession. Delighted though he was with the results of his trials of ether, he felt sure that an anæsthetic with more lasting effect could be found or made, and with characteristic courage and pertinacity he and his two assistants, Drs. Keith and Duncan, carried on personal experiments at Simpson’s private house on such evenings as they could spare. At the same time the scientific world was appealed to for suggestions. About this time David Waldie, a Scotch pharmacist then settled in Liverpool, where he was manager of the Liverpool Apothecaries Company, was visiting Edinburgh and had a conversation with Simpson on his absorbing topic. Waldie had had some special experience with chloric ether at Liverpool, and had made experiments on its chemical character, which had led him to the conclusion that the chloric ether then used was chemically only a mixture of chloroform with some undecomposed spirit. Chloroform, it must be remembered, was then but little known. Dr. Samuel Guthrie, formerly an army surgeon, but later practising at Jewelsville, Jefferson County, N.Y., published an account of a chloric ether he had made from alcohol and chloride of lime in May, 1831. In October of the same year Soubeiran in France, and a month later Liebig in Germany, announced the discovery of a similar compound. None of these products was an absolute chloroform, but all were heavy substances. Dr. Guthrie called his chloric ether, and familiarly sweet whisky, Soubeiran’s was a bichloric ether, and Liebig described his as a trichloride of carbon, but Dumas showed in 1834 that the essential substance was a trichloride of formyl, HCCl3 and a substitution product of marsh gas. He invented the name chloroform. It appears too that another French chemist, Flourens, in March, 1847, reported to the Academy of Sciences of Paris some experiments he had made with chloroform on animals, which indicated its anæsthetic properties; but probably neither Simpson nor Waldie was aware of this paper. This was the chemical which Waldie recommended to Simpson in the summer of 1847, and the chemist promised to send some to Simpson on his return to Liverpool. A fire in the laboratory of his establishment prevented the fulfilment of this promise, and also, Waldie said, prevented him from experimenting on himself with chloroform, as he had intended to do. Simpson got chloroform from Duncan and Flockhart in Edinburgh, but did not expect it would answer on account of its density. The sample was set aside for some time, but on November 4, 1847, he and Duncan and Keith resolved to test it. They all inhaled some from a tumbler, and almost immediately became loquacious and hilarious. Then unconsciousness came on, and Simpson, who was the first to recover, found Duncan under the table, eyes staring, and snoring vigorously, while Keith was kicking at the supper table. The experiment was repeated a few evenings later, and this time a niece of Simpson was induced to take a turn. After inhaling the vapour she fell asleep, murmuring “I’m an angel; I’m an angel.” Simpson at once began the use of chloroform in his practice, and his great reputation and powerful advocacy soon caused its general adoption.
Sir James Young Simpson, M.D.
(From a drawing by T. M. Pape, lent by the publishers of the Century Magazine.)
A Mysterious Anæsthetic.
A strange and little known story is told by Professor Franck. Van Swieten was a Dutch physician, a pupil of Boerhaave. He did not succeed in his native land so well as he ought to have done, for he was a devout Catholic. He went to Vienna, where he attained the highest medical position and the utmost esteem from his patroness, the Empress Maria Theresa. On May 1, 1771, three young gentlemen called on Van Swieten and were shown into his study. The professor was then an old man, 71 years of age.
“What do you desire, my children?” he asked, as he fingered his beads.
“We come to teach Van Swieten what he knows not,” answered one of the young men.