40 



Fourth Meeting — November 29. 

 The President in the Chair. 



PRIVATE BUSINESS. 



Mr. W. W. Driffield, the .Rev. W. Withers Ewbaxk, 

 J. Hunter Robertson, M.D., and Mr. W. Nisbet were 

 elected members of the Society. 



PUBLIC BUSINESS. 



Mr. Waldie gave an interesting account of the composi- 

 tion and mode of manufacture of Chloroform or the Perchloride 

 of Formyle, and the superiority it had over sulphuric ether 

 as an anaesthetic agent. 



On Chloroform — a new agent for producing insensibility to 

 pain hi/ inhalation. 



After some preliminary remarks on the effects produced 

 upon the animal constitution by various substances in the 

 state of vapour, the discovery of the effects of nitrous oxide 

 gas by Davy, and of similar effects having been observed from 

 the vapour of ether, (Quarterly Journal of Science, 1818,^ 

 Mr. Waldie proceeded : — " These facts may be noticed as a 

 remarkable instance of how long men may stand on the brink 

 of a discovery without reaching it, to which subsequent reflec- 

 tion may show them that many circumstances have pointed. 

 The discovery now to be treated of, we owe to the United 

 States of America. According to his own statement, Mr. 

 Horace Wells, a dentist, of Hartford, Connecticut, in reflect- 

 ing on the fact that individuals, either in a state of high 

 excitement, from ordinary causes, or when intoxicated with 

 spirituous liquors, may receive severe wounds without mani- 



