Simpson’s investigations
The fact that one or two deaths had been attributed to the use of ether about this time, caused many workers to make a search for other agents with similar properties. Foremost among these investigators was Dr. James Young Simpson, Professor of Midwifery in the University of Edinburgh, who personally experimented with several chemical liquids in the hope of finding something less disagreeable and persistent in smell than ether.
David Waldie
Waldie suggests the use of chloroform
About this time, Jacob Bell, a chemist, and a founder of the Pharmaceutical Society, published a suggestion that chloric ether should be used for inhalation instead of sulphuric ether; but his suggestion was apparently never put into practice. In October, 1847, Waldie, a chemist of Liverpool, was visiting Edinburgh, and in conversation with Professor Simpson, suggested to the latter the use of chloroform. He recommended the Professor to try it as an anæsthetic, and promised to make and send him some on his return to his home in Liverpool.
Sir James Young Simpson
It appears to have been in that city that the drug was first introduced and probably first used in England as a medicinal agent. Waldie states that about the year 1838 a prescription was brought to the Apothecaries’ Hall, Liverpool (where he held the position of manager), of which one of the ingredients was chloric ether. The preparation was at that timen apparently not known in this country, for Dr. Brett, the chemist of the Company, specially prepared some from the formula he found in the United States Dispensatory. Its properties pleased some of the medical men, particularly Dr. Formby, by whom it was introduced into local practice. Waldie, finding that the preparation was not uniform in strength, improved the process by separating and purifying the chloroform, and dissolving it in pure spirit, by which a product of sweet flavour was obtained.
There seems little doubt that Waldie was the first to suggest the use of chloroform, as an anæsthetic, to Professor Simpson, who at once resolved to try it by experimenting on himself and his assistants. He made the first experiment in his own house on November 4th, 1847, and in a letter written to Waldie thus describes the event: “I am sure you will be delighted to see part of the good results of our hasty conversation. I had the chloroform for several days in theOn the eve of the great discovery. house before trying it, as, after seeing it such a heavy, unvolatile-like liquid, I despaired of it, and went on dreaming about others. The first night we took it, Dr. Duncan, Dr. Keith and I all tried it simultaneously, and were all ‘under the table’ in a minute or two.” Professor Miller, who was a neighbour of Simpson’s, used to come every morning to see if the experimenters had survived! He describes how, “after a weary day’s labour, Simpson and his assistants sat down and inhaled various drugs out of tumblers, as was their custom. Chloroform was searched for and found beneath a heap of waste paper, and with each tumbler newly charged the inhalers resumed their occupation. . . . A moment more, then all was quiet; then a crash. On awakening, Simpson’s first perception was mental. ‘This is far stronger and better than ether,’ said he to himself. His second was to note that he was prostrate on the floor, and that among the friends about him there was both confusion and alarm. Of his assistants, Dr. Duncan he saw snoring heavily, and Dr. Keith kicking violently at the table above him. They made several more trials of it on that eventful evening, and were so satisfied with the results that the festivities did not terminate until a late hour.”