Ether Day: The Strange Tale of America's Greatest Medical Discovery and the Haunted Men Who Made It

What a fascinating read! Years ago, I used to want to be an anesthesiologist... but then I lowered my sights to nursing school--but still with some intent of becoming an anesthetist. (anesthesiologist = doctor ; anesthetist = specially trained technician) Eventually I decided that the medical field was NOT at all for me, yet I still have a strong interest in many things medical--including, certainly, anesthesia. This book supports the old saying that life is stranger than fiction. The events leading to and following the discovery of the anesthetic qualities of nitrous oxide and sulfuric ether are quite boggling--one of which is the fact that people were having fun at `gas parties' and `ether frolics' for years while patients, without anesthesia, screamed in horror as a limb was amputated or a tumor cut from living, feeling tissue. Morton, Wells, and Jackson's stories are sad ones, really... especially, in my opinion, Wells', for he seemed the best humanitarian of that lot. Morton was driven by greed, pure and simple. Jackson, perhaps something in between. I try to pick up a nonfiction book now and then to add in with all the fiction I read, and this most recent bit of nonfiction indulgence was both fascinating and informative.

Anesthesiology was the single greatest discovery in American Medicine which benefited humanity on a universal scale.It was on a Friday, October 16th, 1846 at Mass General Hospital that one William Morton applied the mystery gas. He was not a doctor, nor did he understand exactly what he was doing to the hapless patient...The patient lying quietly on the slab was dreading an exquisitely painful operation; a tumor was to be removed from his neck. He was to be the first to recieve a completely painfree operation.The surgical theater was packed with surgeons and medical students up to the rafters....Would this prove a huge scientific discovery or another humbug?It was a huge success and the medical world plus humankind (and animals) would never have to suffer painful surgical intervention again!Horace Wells and Charles Jackson also laid claim to the actual discovery of Nitrous Oxide, as explained on page 51.The three men had equal vestitures of discovery of the analgesic properties of Nitrous, Ether, Choroform and other more modern anesthetics.Unfortunately for them, their curosity of these inhalable substances led to their addictions to it for the rest of their natural lives.Greed and the need to be recognized for this invention also consumed the minds of these young scientists.They all died without any recompense for their amazing discovery,which is the mother of all rip-offs if you asked me.Their lives were completely enslaved to the powers of these vapors and the legalities tied to the discovery.I bought this amazing little book because I am engaged in a gigantic debate with an anesthesiologist.She doesn't think my psychiatric technician students should be allowed to witness certain surgeries in the OR that she works in. I am seeking all powerful stories and arguments to bolster my position...and this is my position...any all all persons who are intelligent and brave enough to WANT to witness a surgery SHOULD be allowed to witness one.It's a valuable learning experience that should be shared by as many willing parties in controlled conditions.She is too elitist, because she values only the up and coming MDs. The hospital is not a residency medical center.It's a nice community hospital with some good learning going on...why not share the knowledge and allow science to flow from the OR onto new students who would value this experience?I learned alot about anesthesiology by reading this moderatly thin volume...it's a bargain, too.For 97 cents, I expanded my mind, built an arsenal of great arguments pro-surgical theatrics and can challenge the minds of even the most preMadonna-ist of anesthesiologists!Tell me --- Now, you go girl!And just watch me....Off I go!

Surgical anesthesia was America's first great scientific gift to the world. Since ancient times, and throughout the history of Europe, surgery, however necessary, was an unimaginable nightmare. Even the simplest procedure understandably stirred intense dread. And almost any sugery could prove fatal because of pain and shock. Of necessity, surgeons had to work at lightning speed, amputating a limb or "cutting for the stone" in minutes. All this changed in 1846, at Massachusetts General Hospital, when a young man named Gilbert Abbot underwent the first surgery using ether anesthesia. The surgeon was Dr. John C. Warren, whose position and reputation allowed him to take this radical step. The person administering the ether was an ambitious dentist, William Morton, one of the unlikely and ill-fated heroes of the ether story.As Julie Fenster reveals the events that led to and followed from the inception of ether anesthesia, she deftly reveals the human foibles of the key participants: the high-living, risk-taking Morton, the idealistic Horace Wells, and the brilliant and arrogant Charles Jackson. Anesthesia was a great gift to mankind, but it proved the undoing of its flawed discovers.It's a great story, well told and well worth reading.Robert AdlerAuthor of Science Firsts: From the Creation of Science to the Science of Creation (Wiley, 2002).

Who invented anesthesia? If you learned a name for this invention, it was probably William Thomas Green Morton. He turns out to be the most colorful and rascally character in the wonderful _Ether Day: The Strange Tale of America's Greatest Medical Discovery and the Haunted Men Who Made It_ (HarperCollins) by Julie M. Fenster, but he isn't the only one. The invention of anesthesia was one of the most divisive issues in medicine in the nineteenth century. Fenster has dug up an amazing story of the origin of the first great advance in modern medicine, and told it in a lively and dramatic fashion. Opium, alcohol, ice, Mesmerism, and even bleeding into a faint had been used to avoid the horrors of surgery on a conscious patient, with little success. Reliable anesthesia was the first great advance in modern medicine.Nitrous oxide, laughing gas, used to be a party and theatrical intoxicant. After an exhibition of its use, Horace Wells, a dentist, realized it cut pain. He began to use it in dental extractions. Morton met Wells in 1842, after a youthful career of spectacularly defrauding creditors in various big cities, and decided to take up dentistry under Wells's tutelage. Morton later met Charles T. Jackson, a chemist, who maintained that he had suggested to Morton the use of ether for dental extractions. Morton was eventually invited to administer ether before a rapt audience at the Massachusetts General Hospital on 16 October 1846, which is known by historians of anesthesia as Ether Day. It went perfectly. Morton tried the shocking precedent of patenting ether, and when that didn't work, he spent his life petitioning Congress for a reward for his invention, an award opposed by Jackson and Wells. Indeed, Morton got medals and fame for what he had done, but it never made him rich, and rich was what he wanted to be. Wells experimented with chloroform, which was an effective anesthetic but more dangerous than ether, and became addicted to it. He was arrested for throwing acid onto prostitutes while he was chloroformed, and killed himself in jail. Jackson never got the recognition he was sure he deserved for the invention of ether, which only compounded the bitterness he felt that he had also given Morse the idea for the telegraph. He spent the last seven years of his life in an asylum. None of the inventors got what he wanted. This is a complicated tale, wittily told. We have no one hero on which we can bestow the title "The Inventor of Anesthesia" (and Fenster reports a competing and prior claim by Dr. Crawford Long in Georgia, who used ether to removing a swelling on a patient's neck in 1842). It is a messy history, entertainingly told.

Ms. Fenster has told a story that concerns almost every person on the planet and yet the average individual knows nothing about. I am talking about anaethesia. It was so interesting that I completed the book in 4.5 hours. Her thoughtful characterizations of the people involved in the discoveries was balanced perfectly with the historical content. This book helped me to see how such an enormous discovery affected the people at the time. It was the best work of medical history I have ever read. Thank you Ms. Fenster for such a thoughtful and insightful book on such a fascinating topic.