William T. G. Morton, M.D. -- Sulphuric ether. 1852 : Referred to a select committee : Dr. William H. Bissell, of Illinois, chairman : The select committee to whom was referred the memorial of Dr. William T.G. Morton, asking remuneration from Congress for the discovery of the anaesthetic or pain-subduing properties of sulphuric ether.

Date:: [1852]

Credit: William T. G. Morton, M.D. -- Sulphuric ether. 1852 : Referred to a select committee : Dr. William H. Bissell, of Illinois, chairman : The select committee to whom was referred the memorial of Dr. William T.G. Morton, asking remuneration from Congress for the discovery of the anaesthetic or pain-subduing properties of sulphuric ether. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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$cut surfaces, instead of tying the arteries, was not only a favorite no- tion but it liatl been in some degree, however imperfect, reduced to prac- tice.' Pliny, the naturalist, who perished in the erruption of Vesuvius, which entombed the city of Herculaneum, in the year 79, bears distinct and decided testimony to this fact. It has a soporific power, says he in his description of the plant known as the mandragora or circeius—It has a soporific power on the faculties of those who drink it. The ordinary potion is half a cup. It is drunk ag^ainst serpents, and before cuttings and puncturings, lest they should be felt. {Bihitur et contra serpentes, et ante sectiones, punction- csque, ne sentiahtur.) When he comes to speak of the4)lant eruca, called by us the rocket, he informs us that its seeds, when drank, infused in wine, by criminals about to undergo the lash, produce a certain callousness or induration of feeling, {duriiiam quondam contra sensum induere.) Pliny also asserts that the stone Memphitis, powdered and applied in a liniment with vinegar, will stupefy parts to be cut or cauterized, for it so paralyzes the part that it feels no pain; nec sentit cruciatum. Dioscorides, a Greek physician of Cilicia, in Asia, who was born about the time of Pliny's death, and who wrote an extensive work on the ma- teria medica, observes, in his chapter on mandragora— 1. Some boil down the roots in wine to a third part, and preserve the juice thus procured, and give one cyathus of it in sleeplessness and severe pains, of whatever part; also, to cause the insensibility—to pro- duce the anesthesia (poiein anaisthesian) of those who are to be cut or cauterized.''^ 2. There is prepared, also, besides the decoction, a wine from the bark of the root, three minae being thrown into a cask of sweet wine, and of this three cyathi are given to those who are to be cut or cauterized, as afore- said ; for being thrown into a deep sleep, they do not perceive pain. 3. Speaking of another variety of mandragora, called morion, he ob- serves, medical men use it also for those who are to be cut or cauterized. Dioscorides also describes the stone Memphitis, mentioned by Pliny, and says that when it is powdered and applied to parts to be cut or cau- terized, they are rendered, without the slightest danger, wholly insensible tp pain. Matthiolus, the commentator on Dioscorides, confirms his state- ment of the virtues of mandragora, which is repeated by Dodoneus. Wine in which the roots of mandragora has been steeped, says this latter writer, brings on sleep, and appeases all pains, so that it is given to those who are to be cut] sawed, or burned, in any parts of their body, that they may not perceive pain. The expressions used by Apuleius, of Madaura, who flourished about a century after Pliny, are still more remarkable than than those already quoted from the older authors. He says, when treating of mandragora, If any one is to have a member mutilated, burned, or sawed, {mutilan- dum, comhurendum, vet serrandum) let him drink half an ounce with wine, and let him sleep till the member is cut away, without any pain or sensation, {et tantum dormiet, quousque abscindatur membrum aliquo sine dolore et sensu.) It was not in Europe and in Western Asia alone, that these early ef- forts to discover some letheon were m9.de, and attended with partial sue-$

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