, differing in almost every thing else, agreeing
nevertheless in one thing--each affirming of the other that
he was not entitled to the merit of the discovery!

"Such is a brief statement of the proof, by which the mere
matter of fact is established, which induced the Legislature
of Connecticut to hail the late Dr. Horace Wells as a public
benefactor. With this accumulation of evidence on one side,
bearing directly upon the point, and _nothing to countervail
it on the other_, it is impossible to resist the conclusion
that he was the fortunate author of this great discovery,
unless one or the other of two propositions can be
established, namely, either that such a paralysis of the
nervous system as would render the subject insensible to
pain during the process of extracting teeth, would not
embrace the principle of it, or on the other hand, that
nitrous oxyd gas is arbitrarily to be excluded from its
proper place in a class of agents, all of which are nearly
identical in their operation. And even if this difficult
task could be accomplished, there would still remain another
equally difficult to be encountered; because it has already
been shown that Dr. Wells went beyond these limits, and that
Dr. Marcy, in conjunction with him, subjected the use of
sulphuric ether in a larger surgical operation, to the test
of successful experiment. But either of the foregoing
propositions would be too absurd to require a moment's
consideration. The principle is as fully developed by the
painless extraction of teeth, as by the painless amputation
of a limb; by the successful use of nitrous oxyd gas, as of
rectified sulphuric ether. In the language of Dr. Marcy:
'The man who first discovered the fact that the inhalation
of a gaseous substance would render the body insensible to
pain under surgical operations, should be entitled to all
the credit or emolument which may accrue from the use of any
substances of this nature. This is the _principle_--this is
the _fact_--this is the _discovery_. The mere substitution
of ether vapor or any other article for the gas, no more
entitles one to the claim of a _discovery_, than the
substitution of coal for wood in generating steam, would
entitle one to be called the discoverer of the powers of
steam.'