ANAESTHETICS. 
riments at Boston, lie failed completely, and was most wantonly 
ridiculed by the ignorant. Wells then abandoned bis business; 
and, in 1848, died by bis own band. In that same year, how- 
ever, a medical practitioner at Boston, Dr. Bigelow, made 
some very serious operations whilst the patients were under 
the influence of nitrous oxide. The inhalations usually 
occupied about six minutes, and produced complete insen- 
sibility. 
Such was the state of things when Mr. Morton and Dr. 
Jackson, of Boston, discovered the anaesthetic properties of a 
substance then called “ Chloric ether.” Morton, who had been 
a pupil of Wells, had already used nitrous oxide ; and it was 
known, as early as 1818, that this “ chloric ether,” when 
inhaled, was capable of producing similar effects to those of 
nitrous oxide. Thinking that “ chloric ether ” could be more 
easily- administered than the gas, Morton made an experiment 
to this effect upon himself, on the 30th of September, 1846, 
and succeeding in rendering himself completely unconscious for 
eight or nine minutes. He soon afterwards extracted teeth 
from patients placed under the influence of this new anaesthetic; 
and, on the 16tli. of October, 1846, he administered the volatile 
liquid to patients about to undergo surgical operations, in 
the Massachusetts General Hospital. 
Morton withheld his discovery, calling the sleep-producing sub- 
stance “Letheon;” but its peculiar odour led Dr. Bigelow to 
try the effects of common ether (sulphuric ether), and, finding 
that it acted precisely like the “Letheon,” he immediately 
made known his discovery. The American papers, however, 
criticised it unjustly for some time ; but ah the absurdities 
asserted against this valuable discovery were exposed when 
Dr. Bigelow published his work “ On Ether and Chloroform,” 
in 1848. 
In London, ether was soon experimented with by Dr. Booth, 
Mr. Liston, and several others. Professor Simpson was at this 
time in London, and, procuring one of the best inhaling 
apparatus, he proceeded to Edinburgh, where he employed 
ether in the treatment of accouchements. Soon after this, 
Drs. Velpeau and Roux informed the Academy of Medicine at 
Paris that the discovery of the anaesthetic properties of ether 
was a glorious conquest for humanity. 
Thus ether, — which was known to Raymond Lully in the 
thirteenth century, and to Basil Valentine in the fifteenth, and 
Avhich Valerius Cordus carefully described how to make, in 
1540, calling it Oleum Vitrioli dulce , — was only applied to 
produce insensibility to pain about the middle of the nineteenth 
century. 
It is, perhaps, as curious that the so-called “ chloric ether,” 
