reathed deeply, the eyelids closed, the pulse sank. In eight minutes he
began to snore, but heard when called to. In nine minutes the eyes were
suffused; the optic axes were directed upwards and outwards. At the end
of twelve minutes a tooth was extracted, when he uttered an exclamation
and laughed. On his return to himself, he said that he had _felt the
laceration, or tear, but had experienced no pain_. He thought he had
been at a carousal.

If I add to these sketches that the patient sometimes becomes pale,
sometimes flushed,--that the pupils of the eyes are generally dilated
and fixed, sometimes natural and fixed, sometimes contracted,--that
violent excitement sometimes manifests itself attended with the
persistence or even exaltation of the ordinary sensibility,--that
sometimes hysteric fits are brought on; sometimes a state resembling
common intoxication,--you will have had the means of forming a
sufficiently exact and comprehensive idea of the features of
etherisation.

Then, if we exclude the cases in which excitement, instead of collapse,
is induced, and, in general, cases complicated with disorder of the head
or chest, it appears that the inhalation of ether is not attended with
questionable or injurious consequences; and that it places the patient
in a condition in which the performance of a surgical operation may be
prudently contemplated. If the operation require any length of
time,--from thirty to forty minutes, for instance,--the state of
insensibility may be safely maintained, by causing the inhalation to be
resumed as often as its effects begin to wear off. In minor cases of
surgery, in which union of the wound _by adhesion_ is necessary to the
success of the operation--in harelip, for instance--an exacter
comparison is, perhaps, requisite than has yet been made of the relative
results obtained on etherised and non-etherised patients. In graver
cases, some of which always end fatally, symptoms, again, may
occasionally supervene, or continue from the time of the operation,
which are directly attributable to the etherisation. But, in all
probability, the entire proportion of recoveries in etherised cases will
be found to be increased, through the injurious effects being averted
which are produced by fear and suffering. There is every reason to
expect that a saving of human life will be thus realised,--an advantage
over and above the deliverance from pain and terror.

So the invention of etherisation des