Ether : a brief account of its manufacture, chemical composition, congealing properties, etc. etc. / by Martin Henry Payne.
- Payne, Martin Henry.
- Date:
- 1866
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Ether : a brief account of its manufacture, chemical composition, congealing properties, etc. etc. / by Martin Henry Payne. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![ON ETHER. 13V M.\rtin Henry Payne. While tlie subject of ether is on the tapis/’ a few words upon its chemical composition, properties, and medici- nal effects, may not be altogether unacceptable to some of the younger members of our profession. The great interest just now taken in this agent, arises from its having been brought prominently under our notice by Dr. Richardson in his recent paper on “ The Anaesthetic Spray Producer ”—-an admirable little instrument invented by him for creating insensibility to pain, by congealing the parts upon which, by its means, the spray of ether is thrown. In the first place, then, what is ether, and what are its chemical constituents? (2.) How is it obtained? (3.) What are its properties ? And (4.) How are the latter to be ex- plained as producing local anaesthesia through the use of the instrument in question ? (1.) Ether (from vXr]—the material from which anything is formeuj is one of the products of the distillation of alcohol with strong sulphuric acid, and is a thin, transparent, fragrant liquid, with a strong, pungent taste, having a sp. gr. 0-720 at GO'^ Fahr., and boiling at 96^^, the barometer stand- ing at 30. It is the oxide of a hydrocarbon, ethyl, consisting of four equivalents of carbon, five of hydrogen, and one of oxygen, or, written in chemical formula, C^H,oO, the com- bining proportion being 37. The ethers may, in fact, be v^ompared to ordinary metallic salts, in which the salt basyl, ethyl (C4H,o), takes the place of a metah (2.) The method generally adopted in the manufacture of ether is as follows :—Alcohol and sulphuric acid are intro- duced into a glass retort connected with a condensing arrangement, and maintained at a brisk ebullition; and as soon as the ethereal fluid begins to pass over, fresh spirit is introduced in such quantity as to equal that which distils over. This is done by using a tube furnished with a stop- cock to regulate the supply, connected by one end with a vessel containing the spirit, and raised above the level of tlie matrass, the other end being passed througli a cork fitted to Its top, and dipping into the fluid. Were it not to pass under the level of the liquid great loss of spirit would take place. A thermometer-tube is next passed through the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22343623_0005.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
