vin CONQUEST OF DISEASE 223 



as potent as ether but less irritating and disagreeable to 

 the patient. With his two assistants, Dr. Keith and 

 Dr. Duncan, he tried the effect of various liquids night 

 after night, though the tests were not without great 

 risk to the experimenters. The discovery of the power 

 of chloroform has been told dramatically by Prof. Miller : 



Late one evening it was the 4th of November, 1847 on 

 returning home after a weary day's labour, Dr. Simpson, with 

 his two friends and assistants, Drs. Keith and J. M. Duncan, 

 sat down to their somewhat hazardous work in Dr. Simpson's 

 dining-room. Having inhaled several substances, but without 

 much effect, it occurred to Dr. Simpson to try a ponderous 

 material, which he had formerly set aside on a lumber-table, 

 and which, on account of its great weight, he had hitherto 

 regarded as of no likelihood whatever. This happened to be a 

 small bottle of chloroform. It was searched for and recovered 

 from beneath a heap of waste paper. And, with each tumbler 

 newly charged, the inhalers resumed their vocation. Immedi- 

 ately an unwonted hilarity seized the party, they became bright- 

 eyed, very happy and very loquacious expatiating on the 

 delicious aroma of the new fluid. . . . But suddenly there was 

 a talk of sounds being heard like those of a cotton-mill, louder 

 and louder ; a moment more, then all was quiet, and then a 

 crash. On awakening, Dr. Simpson's first perception was mental 



" This is far stronger and better than ether," said he to him- 

 self. 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. 



The inhalation of chloroform was repeated many 

 times that night, and ten days later, Simpson was able 

 to announce that he had administered the anaesthetic 

 to about fifty individuals " without the slightest bad 

 result of any kind." Much opposition was at first 

 offered to the use of chloroform in childbirth, largely 

 upon the grounds of the penalty pronounced upon Eve 

 for her transgression in the Garden of Eden " in sorrow 

 shalt thou bring forth children," but it was met with the 



