Among those who had joined in these ether-frolics was Dr. Wilhite of Anderson, South Carolina. In one of them, in 1839, when nearly all of the party had been inhaling and some had been laughing, some crying, some fighting—just as they might have done if they had had the nitrous oxide gas—Wilhite, then a lad of seventeen, saw a negro boy at the door and tried to persuade him to inhale. He refused and resisted all attempts to make him do it, till they seized him, held him down, and kept a handkerchief wet with ether close over his mouth. Presently his struggles ceased; he lay insensible, snoring, past all arousing; he seemed to be dying. And thus he lay for an hour, till medical help came and, with shaking, slapping, and cold splashing, he was awakened and suffered no harm.
The fright at having, it was supposed, so nearly killed the boy, put an end to ether-frolics in that neighbourhood; but in 1842 Wilhite had become a pupil of Dr. Crauford Long, practising at that time at Jefferson (Jackson County, Georgia). Here he and Dr. Long and three fellow-pupils often amused themselves with the ether-inhalation, and Dr. Long observed that when he became furiously excited, as he often did, he was unconscious of the blows which he, by chance, received as he rushed or tumbled about. He observed the same in his pupils; and thinking over this, and emboldened by what Mr. Wilhite told him of the negro boy recovering after an hour's insensibility, he determined to try whether the ether-inhalation would make any one insensible of the pain of an operation. So, in March, 1842, nearly three years before Wells's observations with the nitrous oxide, he induced Mr. Venable, who had been very fond of inhaling ether, to inhale it till he was quite insensible. Then he dissected a tumour from his neck; no pain was felt, and no harm followed. Three months later, he similarly removed another tumour from him; and again, in 1842 and 1845, he operated on three other patients, and none felt pain. His operations were known and talked of in his neighbourhood; but the neighbourhood was only that of an obscure little town; and he did not publish any of his observations. The record of his first operation was only entered in his ledger:
“James Venable, 1842. Ether and excising tumour, $2.00.”
He waited to test the ether more thoroughly in some greater operation than those in which he had yet tried it; and then he would have published his account of it. While he was waiting, others began to stir more actively in busier places, where his work was quite unknown, not even heard of.
Among those with whom, in his unlucky visit to Boston, Wells talked of his use of the nitrous oxide, and of the great discovery which he believed that he had made, were Dr. Morton and Dr. Charles Jackson, men widely different in character and pursuit, but inseparable in the next chapter of the history of anæsthetics.
Morton was a restless, energetic dentist, a rough man, resolute to get practice and make his fortune. Jackson was a quiet, scientific gentleman, unpractical and unselfish, in good repute as a chemist, geologist, and mineralogist. At the time of Wells's visit, Morton, who had been his pupil in 1842, and for a short time in 1843 his partner, was studying medicine and anatomy at the Massachusetts Medical College, and was living in Jackson's house. Neither Morton nor Jackson put much if any faith in Wells's story, and Morton witnessed his failure in the medical theatre. Still, Morton had it in his head that tooth-drawing might somehow be made painless, and even after Wells had retired from practice, he talked with him about it, and made some experiments, but, having no scientific skill or knowledge, they led to nothing. Still, he would not rest, and he was guided to success by Jackson, whom Wells advised him to ask to make some nitrous oxide gas for him.
Jackson had long known, as many others had, of sulphuric ether being inhaled for amusement, and of its producing effects like those of nitrous oxide: he knew also of its employment as a remedy for the irritation caused by inhaling chlorine. He had himself used it for this purpose, and once, in 1842, while using it, he became completely insensible. He had thus been led to think that the pure ether might be used for the prevention of pain in surgical operations; he spoke of it with some scientific friends, and sometimes advised a trial of it; but he did not urge it or take any active steps to promote even the trial. One evening, Morton, who was now in practice as a dentist, called on him, full of some scheme which he did not divulge, and urgent for success in painless tooth-drawing. Jackson advised him to use the ether, and taught him how to use it.
On that same evening, the 30th of September, 1846, Morton inhaled the ether, put himself to sleep, and, when he awoke, found that he had been asleep for eight minutes. Instantly, as he tells, he looked for an opportunity of giving it to a patient; and one just then coming in, a stout, healthy man, he induced him to inhale, made him quite insensible, and drew his tooth without his having the least consciousness of what was done.
But the great step had yet to be made—the step which Wells would have tried to make if his test experiment had not failed. Clearly, operations as swift as that of tooth-drawing might be rendered painless, but could it be right to incur the risk of insensibility long enough and deep enough for a large surgical operation? It was generally believed that in such insensibility there was serious danger to life. Was it really so? Jackson advised Morton to ask Dr. J. C. Warren to let him try, and Warren dared to let him. It is hard now to think how bold the enterprise must have seemed to those who were capable of thinking accurately on the facts then known.
The first trial was made on the 16th of October, 1846. Morton gave the ether to a patient in the Massachusetts General Hospital, and Dr. Warren removed a tumour from his neck. The result was not complete success; the patient hardly felt the pain of cutting, but he was aware that the operation was being performed. On the next day, in a severer operation by Dr. Hayward, the success was perfect; the patient felt nothing, and in long insensibility there was no appearance of danger to life.