An address on ether-drinking : its prevalence and results delivered before the Society for the Study and Cure of Inebriety / by Ernest Hsrt.

  • Ernest Abraham Hart
Date:
[between 1877 and 1897?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An address on ether-drinking : its prevalence and results delivered before the Society for the Study and Cure of Inebriety / by Ernest Hsrt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    7/18 page 5
    iished many years before that time. Dr. F. Auterson, of Maghera- felt, who has known of the existence of ether drinking since 1853, gives the following account of its origin: “ A few years prior to the above date an unqualified medical man named Kelly practised at Draperstown, and kept a drug store. He drank more whisky than was good for him; he was prevailed on to give up the whisky, and then used the ether, and taught the people to use it al80.,, This narrative seems to bear the stamp of intrinsic pro¬ bability, and it may commend itself to historical critics as combining in itself the two theories above-mentioned as to the origin of ether drinking. As regards the history of the practice, therefore, it may be taken as proved that it began something less than half a century ago at Draperstown in South Derry, that town being, in the words of one of my informants, the Rev. Ed¬ ward Gallen, “ the centre point and spring of ether drinking.” From Draperstown the habit spread over certain parts of the county of Londonderry, the borders of the neighbouring counties of Antrim and Tyrone being also infected to a certain extent. I cannot doubt, however, from the evidence before me that great impetus was given to the use of ether as a beverage by the Act 18 and 19 Viet., c. 37, passed in 1855-6, which had the object of allowing spirit of wine to be used duty free in the arts and manufactures, and for this purpose provided that such spirit should be rendered unfit for use as a beverage by the addition of not less than one-ninth of its bulk of wood naphtha—a mixture termed methylated spirit. I find in the Pharmaceutical Journal of that year that Mr. MacFarlane, of Edinburgh, states that both chloroform and ether could be produced from methylated spirit in a state of great purity; the chloroform was entirely free from any flavour derived from the naphtha, and the ether he thought was as good as much that is made in the usual way from spirit of wine. This was confirmed by Mr. Redwood. The “methylated ether,” then, which we hear of as being sold as a beverage is al¬ together a different thing in point of flavour and odour from the nauseous methylated product known as methylated spirit. It is an ether prepared from methylated spirit, but in which nearly all the methyl products have been removed by purifying processes. I have here, however, the pure ether prepared from rectified spirit, and two grades of “ methylated ether,” that is, ether prepared from methylated spirit. The difference is not very marked to the ordinary observer, except in price. The pure ether costs wholesale about 5s. a lb., the methylated ethers respectively Is. 4d. and 8d„ alb.; so that the price of one is about seven times the price of the other. It is to the introduction of this cheap ether, which can be retailed at a nominal price, and to the simultaneous activity in hunting down the illicit stills, that the prevalence of ether drinking may, I believe, be traced; and I believe that Father Mathew’s name and the alleged indirect influence of “ taking the pledge” against alcohol have been drawn into the history with more picturesqueness than historical accuracy. Geographical Distribution.—The point of greatest preva¬ lence of ether drinking is the southern part of the county of Londonderry; in the northern division of the county it appears to be practically unknown. Thus a well- known practitioner of Coleraine writes to me: “ In an ex¬ perience extending over the last seventeen years I have not met with a single case. I only knew of ether drinking during my apprenticeship about 1866 or 1867. It was then mainly con¬ fined to that portion of South Derry about Draperstown and Ma- ghera. Since then I understand the practice of drinking ether
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3