natural undertaking to patent solicitors) 'to remove," and we are not disposed to deny that he entered into it, as stated in the deposition of Wilson, from the belief that it afforded him the only way to 'secure and save himself the credit of discovery." This may be a palliation, but it is not in our opinion, a justification for violating the recognized obligations of medical brotherhood and the principles of social morality; not a sufficient excuse for attempting to conceal what ought to have been promulgated, free as light and wide as the habitation of man. Morton has not even this excuse, insufficient as we consider it to be. He was the first to suggest and urge a patent, and that within twentyfour hours after the discovery is brought to his knowledge. He employs a patent solicitor to subdue the 'old and exploded prejudices' of his copartner, and to hasten the consummation of the enterprise. He anxiously seeks means to prevent the recognition of this agent by changing its odor. Had he succeeded in this wicked attempt, his brightest anticipations would have been realized. But failing in his scheme to speculate in the sufferings of mankind, which, in our judgemnt, is ten times more culpable than speculating in the necessaries of life, he memorializes the Congress of the United States to make good from the national treasury what he failed to extort from the nation's sufferings."

On the 31st of January, 1849, the Academy of Sciences of France awarded the "Cross of the Legion of Honor" to Dr. Charles T. Jackson, as the discoverer of anesthesia. Prior to this time Long had been content with making known his discovery to his immediate world, a proceeding which in this mercenary age and scramble after preferment, may seem strange, and yet it is in keeping with the character of the man, for I have rarely known a man more modest and retiring in disposition than Long. Thoughtful and quiet, no amount of cross-questioning in the sick-room could elicit from him more than a kind of guttural sound which might mean yes, or no, or I don't know, according to the interpretation of his hearer.

In 1861, Dr. Jackson, in an article in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, writes as follows:

"At the request of the Hon. M. Dawson, United States Senator from Georgia, on March 8th, 1854, I called upon Dr. C. W. Long, of Athens, Ga., while on my way to the Dahlonega gold mines, and examined Dr. Long's evidence on which his claims to the first practical operation with ether in surgery were founded, and wrote, "as requested, to Mr. Dawson, who was then in the U. S. Senate, all I learned on the subject. From documents shown me by Dr. Long, it appears that he employed sulphuric ether as an anesthetic agent:

"1st. March 30th, 1842, when he extirpated a small glandular tumor from the neck of Jas. M. Venable, a boy in Jefferson, Ga., now dead.

"2d. July 3d, 1842, in the amputation of the toe of a negro boy belonging to Mrs. Hemphill, of Jackson, Georgia.

"3d. September 9th, 1843, in extirpating a tumor from the head of Mary Vincent, of Jackson, Georgia.

"4th. January 8th, 1845, in the amputation of a finger of a negro boy belonging to Ralph Bailey of Jackson, Georgia.

"Copies of the letters and depositions proving these operations were all shown me by Dr. Long. I have waited, expecting Dr. Long to publish his statements and evidence in full, and therefore have not before published what I learned from him. He is a very modest, retiring man, and not disposed to bring his claims before any but a medical or scientific tribunal. Had he written me in season I would have presented his claims to the Academy of Science of France, but he allowed his case to go by default, and the academy knew no more of his claims to the practical use of ether in surgical operations than I did."

CHAS. T. JACKSON, M.D.

The list of operations as given by Dr. Jackson is incomplete, but this does not affect his admission of Long's priority in the use of ether for anesthetic purposes.

In an article in the Virginia Medical Monthly, for May, 1878, Dr. Marion Sims writes as follows:

"6th. That Long was the first man to intentionally produce anesthesia for surgical operations, and that this was done with sulphuric ether in 1842.

"7th. That Long did not by accident hit upon it, but that he reasoned it out in a philosophical and logical man

ner.

"8th. That Wells, without any knowledge of Long's labors, demonstrated in the same philosophic way the great principle of anesthesia by the use of nitrous oxide gas(1844).

"9th. That Morton intended to follow Wells in using the gas as an anesthetic in dentistry, and for this purpose asked Wells to show him how to make the gas (1846).

"10th. That Wells referred Morton to Jackson for this purpose, as Jackson was known to be a scientific man and an able chemist.

"11th. That Morton called on Jackson for information on the subject, and that Jackson told Morton to use sulphuric ether instead of nitrous oxide gas, as it was known to possess the same properties, was as safe and easier to get. "12th. That Morton acting on Jackson's offhand suggestion, used ether successfully in the extraction of teeth (1846).

"13th. That Warren, Heyward and Bigelow performed important surgical operations in the Massachusetts General Hospital (October, 1846) on patients etherized by Morton, and that this introduced and popularized the practice throughout the world. To each is due a certain measure of credit, but no one man can claim this great honor exclusively. The names of Long, Wells, Morton and Jackson will doubtless be associated as colaborers in the great work, and to these must be added the immortal name of Sir James Y. Simpson, who introduced chloroform and enlarged the domain of anesthesia."

Dr. Long died in Athens, Georgia, June 14th, 1878, at the age of sixty-two. While actively engaged in his professional work he was stricken with apoplexy at the bedside of a patient, and died in a few days.

PHYSIOLOGY OF ETHER ANESTHESIA.

BY J. B. MORGAN, M.D., AUGUSTA, GA.

:

The earliest history of man finds him in an earnest, active work to find some means of relief from pain, some agent for the alleviation of human suffering.

But in spite of the long and praiseworthy efforts of humane surgeons, on this line, in all parts and in all ages of the world, no substance had been found which met these requirements and was proven safe and suitable for common use up to the time of Velpeau who, as late as 1839, wrote: "To escape pain in surgical operations is a chimera which we are not permitted to look for in our time."

Anesthesia in its present sense is truly a modern discovery, and is justly credited to the United States. It is probably true that the compound known as sulphuric ether had been in use as a remedial agent since the thirteenth century. But it was left for our own Crawford W. Long to first give it a trial for the relief of pain in a surgical operation.

In all the broad domain of materia medica and therapeutics, no subject has commanded more thought and attention, or resulted in inore widely divergent conclusions, than the study of the physiological effects of ether.

Various theories have been advanced to account for the phenomena of anesthesia; a brief consideration of even the most plausible would greatly exceed the limits of this paper. Indeed, such an effort would be more ingenious, than profitable, more confusing than convincing.

The earliest investigators on this line were persuaded that the phenomena of anesthesia resulted simply from mechanical compression of the brain; the idea being that the vapors of ether or chloroform possessed such a degree of tension that the blood charged with them actually produced compression, analogous to the condition which obtains after effusion within the cranial cavity.

Both physics and physiology quickly rendered this hypothesis untenable. Since most anesthetics are rich in carbon, it was surmised that the carbon acted as a reducing agent upon the blood, and produced a condition similar to that of poisoning by carbon dioxide.

This theory had to be abandoned, when it was found that the chemical composition of the blood during the period of anesthesia exhibited no changes that could possibly warrant such a conclusion.

Professor Walter S. Haines, Claude Bernard, and other observers, made various interesting and highly instructive investigations and experiments on the lower animals, and in the vegetable world; the result of which seem to prove that the presence of an anesthetic substance, even in small quantity, had a tendency to diminish, or temporarily abolish, ordinary chemical change in all forms of matter.

An important fact, made prominent by these investigations, is, that while anesthetic substances have the property of interfering with free molecular movement and chemical change, both in the living protoplasm of vegetable and animal tissues, they do not do so with equal ease and rapidity.

The induction of sleep in a plant, the arrest of fermentative processes in a compound, and the production of anesthetic insensibility in a rabbit are all simple and of easy attainment; but it is not always an easy or simple matter to reduce a vigorous adult to the same condition.