Ether in the practice of Midwifery. 135 



and abrogation of conscious pain, great as, by itself, such a boon 

 would doubtless be. But in modifying and obliterating the state 

 of conscious pain, the nervous shock otherwise liable to be produced 

 by such pain, — particularly whenever it is extreme, and intensely 

 waited for and endured, — is saved to the constitution, and thus an 

 escape gained from many evil consequences that are too apt to follow 

 in its train. Granting that experience will yet be able to prove its 

 safety and efficacy in modifying and annulling the pains of labour, 

 will (I have repeatedly heard the question asked) the state of etheri- 

 zation ever come to be generally employed with the simple object of 

 assuaging the pains of natural parturition ? Or (as the problem has 

 not unfrequently been put to me) would we be "justified" in using 

 it for such a purpose 1 



If experience betimes goes fully to prove to us the safety with 

 which ether may, under proper precautions and management, be 

 employed in the course of parturition, then, looking to the facts of 

 the case, and considering the actual amount of pain usually endured 

 (as shewn in the descriptions of Merriman, Naegele, and others,) 

 I believe that the question will require to be quite changed in its 

 character. For, instead of determining in relation to it whether we 

 shall be "justified" in using this agent under the circumstances 

 named, it will become, on the other hand, necessary to determine 

 whether on any grounds, moral or medical, a professional man could 

 deem himself "justified" in withholding, and not using any such 

 safe means (as we at present pre-suppose this to be,) provided he 

 had the power by it of assuaging the pangs and anguish of the last 

 stage of natural labour, and thus counteracting what Velpeau des- 

 cribes as "those piercing cries, that agitation so lively, those 

 excessive efforts, those inexpressible agonies, and those pains appa- 

 rently intolerable," which accompany the termination of natural 

 parturition in the human mother. — Ibid. 



