648 
ON THE USE OP ETHER AS AN INTOXICANT 
though a “small flame” be used in both cases. Some experiments I have recently made 
show that there is a possibility of even greater variation in the result obtained as the 
“ flashing-point ” of one and the same sample of oil. 
Such a defect as this in the prescribed mode of testing mineral oil leaves the practice 
of this test entirely subject to the option or fancy of the operator; and it is alone suffi¬ 
cient to render the application of the test totally useless for the purpose of determining 
the character of mineral oil in regard to inflammability, and worse than useless for all 
the purposes of the Petroleum Act, besides rendering this Act and its application a pos¬ 
sible source of serious inconvenience to those engaged in the mineral oil. On these 
grounds alone, therefore, there seems to be ample need for a revision of the law, and for 
the adoption of a more suitable test.— Chemical News. 
Analytical Laboratory, 150, Fenchurch Street, E.C. 
ON THE USE OF ETHER AS AN INTOXICANT IN THE NORTH OF 
IRELAND. 
BY HARRY NAPIER DRAPER, P.C.S. 
The number of cases recorded by writers on therapeutics and toxicology, in which 
ether in its fluid form has been continuously used as a nervous stimulant is very small. 
Instances are quoted by Pereira (Mat. Med. vol. ii. p. 1965), where it was habitually 
taken in large doses, but in these it was employed for the relief of physical suffering. 
One is that of the chemist, Briquet, who took a pint of ether daily, to alleviate the in¬ 
tense agony caused by the intestinal inflammation of which he was dying. Another is 
that of a gentleman who was in the habit of taking about two ounces daily for the re¬ 
lief of asthma. 
An example of the use of ether as an intoxicant is given by Taylor (‘ On Poisons,’ 
1st ed. p. 435). In this case, a young man was in the habit of taking large doses of 
the fluid, which he obtained at different druggists’ shops. Its effect was so like alcoho¬ 
lic intoxication that he was brought before a magistrate on a charge of drunkenness. 
What real ground for the belief there may be, I know not, but there is a widely-diffused 
popular impression that ether is used as a stimulant by women of the higher ranks of 
society. The existence of the practice was, for example, alluded to in the ‘ Daily Tele¬ 
graph,’ only a few weeks since. 
But neither these isolated cases of the habitual use of ether,—cases, too, in which 
the habit has, without doubt, had its origin in the medicinal use of the stimulant,—nor 
the floating idea that there are fair consumers of Hoffman's anodyne and perles d’ether, 
for whom ether has never been prescribed, quite prepare one for the discovery that there 
is in the northern part of Ireland a number of people who, forswearing alcohol, supply 
its place with ether; a race to whom ether is what koumiss is to a Kalmuck, ava to a 
South Sea Islander, absinthe to a certain class of Frenchmen, or gin and whisky to 
their more immediate neighbours. It is not the medicinal consumption of opium which 
rules its price, nor the surgical employment of chloroform which makes its production 
a special manufacture,and not Dr. Collis Browne himself could have anticipated the tide 
of popular favour which would have set in for his palatable combination of both these 
anodynes. These are things not difficult to understand, for human nature is impatient 
of pain, and grasps at any nepenthe which presents itself in pleasing guise; but that 
any condition of things should arise which should take a nauseous fluid like ether from 
the pharmacopoeia and the laboratory of the chemist, and make it the recognised 
stimulant of any set of men, and that with them it should supplant alcohol—that they 
should take “ nips ” of ether morning, noon, and night, as they would whisky, and— 
for anything shown to the contrary—drink good luck or ratify bargains in a glass of 
ether, was not a thing to look for, and is, perhaps, without parallel in the history of 
narcotic stimulants. The facts, nevertheless, are simply as I am about to state them. 
They rest upon the authority of a number of gentlemen who, in their respective capa¬ 
cities of physicians, clergymen, ether manufacturers, and druggists, have been applied 
to to furnish information on the subject, and I here wish to thank these gentlemen for 
their kindness in replying to the systematic series of questions addressed to them. My 
