correctness of my statement that certain secrets are conventional among dentists, I have applied to three of the most eminent dentists of this city, to whom I can refer your correspondent, who do not hesitate to state that such is the fact. But if Dr. Flagg still holds that he "does not know of anything which is practised in dentistry, even relating to the mechanical department, which is kept secret by duly educated dentists," I know no way in which, according to his own views, he could contribute more directly to the cause of "suffering humanity" than by volunteering to communicate to "duly educated dentists," for the mere equivalent of the time occupied in so doing, a concise account of his methods in some of the more recondite departments of his art; for example, in the composition and manufacture of mineral teeth. I am confident that the number of applicants, both in town and in the country, who would amply compensate him for his time, would testify at once to the demand for this sort of knowledge, and to the general appreciation of his skill. I have been led to exceed my intended limits, because I was desirous of answering in some measure a class of objectors of whom I regret that your correspondent should be the representative. No one can doubt that an inestimable discovery has been made. Though it may be regretted that it has not been made free to all, yet the inventors have an undoubted legal right to pursue with regard to it whatever course may seem to them best. They have made arrangements which place it at the command of any who are disposed to avail themselves of it, and I cannot but think 1 1 I had occasion a few days since to tie the femoral artery of a patient who was unable to pay for the operation. I found no difficulty in obtaining the gratuitous use of the method; nor do I conceive that others would, in similar circumstances. It may be added, that the patient was wholly unconscious of the dissection. that the community, if not the government, will be forward in recognizing the magnitude of their claims. I have only to add, that I am not ambitious of controversy, and that I shall make no further communication upon this part of the subject, unless the position I have here assumed shall seem to me to be in any way invalidated. Your obedient servant, BOSTON, December 4, 1846. HENRY J. BIGELOW. ETHER AND CHLOROFORM: THEIR HISTORY, SURGICAL USE, DANGERS, AND THE astronomer Leverrier calculated the direction and rate of travel of a star, and pointed to its place in the heavens. A star appeared; yet astronomers tell us that this was not his star, that its rate of travel was other than had been predicted by Leverrier. No other appeared exactly to fulfil the astronomer's calculations. Yet Leverrier is great, and his name is familiar. Professor Schönbein converted cotton into a new vehicle of sudden force. The belief that gun cotton might be cheaply used for purposes of offence or of defence, gave to the name of Schönbein a currency in all parts of the civilized world, and to gun cotton the position of one of the discoveries of the age. The French experimenter has attached his name to the Daguerreotype, and this, too, is great, although a mere luxury when tested by its applicability to the necessities. of man. Few will deny to these inventions and discoveries the epithet great, when compared with others of the day; and yet their greatness is of very different kind. What, then, shall be considered a test of greatness in discovery? 1 The author of these pages does not propose to dig up the well-worn hatchet of the ether controversy. It may, therefore, be proper to state that the following pages were originally published more than six months ago in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, April 19 and 26, 1848. A writer upon patents has said that an invention is entitled to protection from the law, when it materially modifies the result produced, or the means by which it is produced; that a patent right is due to novelty in a machine producing an old fabric in a new way, or to the manufacture of a new and very different fabric, resulting from a slight change in the machine; in other words, to novelty in the combined result of means and end. This distinction, if not legal, is apparently just; and I should, in like manner, call an invention great in proportion to the combined amount of mind invested in its production, and of its intrinsic ability to minister to the supposed or real comfort and well-being of the race. What, then, is the character of the discovery of etherization? And it is not idle nor superfluous to examine definitively the claims of this invention. I shall presently show that there are regions where the use of ether is still unknown, or its efficacy doubted; and that there have been those who maintained that a certain good fortune attended its discovery, which in a measure abated its claim to greatness. The following position is, I believe, quite tenable. Ether is capable of producing, with very rare exceptions, if there be any, complete insensibility to pain, with discomfort to the patient in only a part of the cases; this discomfort being trifling compared with the pain of an incision an inch in length. What is pain, which the race has ceased to know in its more formidable phase, and which in another age will be remembered as a calamity of rude and early science? Pain is the unhappy lot of animal vitality. It respects neither condition nor external circumstances. In the countless generations which lead us step by step into the remote ages of antiquity, each individual has bowed before this mighty inquisitor. It has borne down the strongest intellect, and sapped and withered the affections. The metaphysician finds in it the secret spring of one half of human action; the moralist proclaims it as the impending retribution of terrestrial sin; the strongest figure of the Bible condemns man to eternal flames; and yet this "dreaded misery, the worst of evils," now lies prostrate at the feet of science. Pain is encountered at man's option, and the nerves fulfil their functions only with the connivance of the intellect. One hundred years ago a lecturer proved that the discoverer who had subdued the lightning was not an impious man. The modern lecturer may proclaim that the greatest of discoveries has deprived terrestrial fire of its terrors; that man was not born to pain; and he may reply to those who argue that pain is immediately administered by a Divine. agency, that physical suffering grows out of the imperfection of physical existence, and that it is not the mundane retribution of transgression. The practical employment of etherization ensued upon the conference of two individuals. One of these, retreating to the privacy of his own apartment, placed his watch upon the table, and applied ether to his mouth. Eight minutes of complete obliviousness now elapsed, and he awoke excited with the purpose of testing the degree and quality of this new somnolency with reference to his peculiar art. For some hours the confirmation of certainty was delayed, and the future discovery hung upon a slender thread. Public wayfarers inclined no sympathetic ear to the necessities of a discoverer, and several diplomatists, sent out to bribe some chance foot-passenger to lose a tooth for an equivalent of five dollars, returned without being able to negotiate. Towards nine o'clock, the inmates of the establishment were aroused by the arrival of a patient. Yet he, recognizing in the dental art only the substitution of one pain for another, |