41 



festing the least suffering, was led to inquire whether the 

 same result would not follow from the inhalation of some 

 exhilarating gas, the effects of which woidd pass off imme- 

 diately, leaving the system none the worse for its use. 

 Accordingly, in the fall of 184.4, he had liimself a tooth ex- 

 tracted, and performed the same operation on others, under 

 the influence of nitrous oxide gas, without pain. He states 

 further, that he communicated the result of these experiments 

 to Dr. Morton, Dr. Jackson, and others, in Boston. Whether, 

 as the result of such communication, or from his own reflec- 

 tion on the effects of nitrous oxide and the vapour of ether, 

 Dr. Morton, of Boston, in September, 1846, extracted a tooth 

 from a stout, healthy man, whom he had caused to inhale the 

 vapour of ether, and who avowed a total unconsciousness of 

 its removal. From that time the discovery was made known 

 in America, and speedily found its way to this country, where 

 it has met with the advocacy, scepticism, and opposition, 

 which are the usual fate of such novelties. 



" Dr. J. Y. Simpson, professor of midwifery in the Univer- 

 sity of Edinburgh, who has, since the introduction of ether 

 inhalation into this country, carried on the investigation of 

 the merits of the practice with the greatest ardour and assi- 

 duity, had been for some time on the search for other vapours 

 possessing the properties of ether without certain disadvan- 

 tages connected with its use, the result of which has been the 

 discovery of such properties in chloroform, through the 

 following circumstances : — 



"The term cliloric ether was at one time applied to the 

 cldoride of defiant gas, or Dutch liquid of chemists. In 1831, 

 Mr. Guthrie, an American chemist, was led, by a statement in 

 rji./timan's Elements of Chemistry, that the alcoholic solution 

 of chloric ether was a grateful and diffusible stimulant, to 

 attempt a cheap and easy process for its preparation. This 

 he did by distilling a mixture of spirit and chloride of lime, 

 collecting the product so long as it came over sued and 



