This review originally appeared on my blog at www.gimmethatbook.com.

Thanks to the author for gifting me this book for review!

ETHER DAY is meticulously researched; the characters are brought to life via the detailed descriptions of their lives and mental states.

To think that people were operated on with no care for their pain, yet Laughing Gas (ether) was used by non medical people for fun and escape, is mind boggling. No one made the connection between the two until William Morton, Horace Wells, and Charles Jackson “discovered” the other uses of this gas.

The fact that these three men’s lives overlapped was both good and bad: the discovery of ether as an anesthetic made both patient’s and surgeon’s lives better, but there was a lot of vitriol and ego involved as well. Each stood to make his fortune via ether, yet their lives were not always brightened by their actions.

Fenster has clearly done her research: there is both an index and endnotes, showing the comprehensive reading she did to recreate this story. She also includes a bibliography for further reading. The 1800’s come to life under her expert prose and background detail. I especially enjoyed the explanation of how the gas was delivered, and how the machines were tinkered with to provide a more accurate mixing of gas and air. The fact that these men experimented on themselves shows both folly and determination – in Chapter 14, Chlory, there is a section about scientists sniffing different concoctions of gases to figure out the best combination.

Every Thursday evening they would gather at the Simpson home, sitting around the dining table to inhale candidate chemicals. “I selected for experiment and have inhaled several chemical liquids of a more fragrant and agreeable odor,” Simpson wrote in a medical journal during the course of his research, “such as the chlorine of hydrocarbon, acetone, nitrate of oxide of ethyle, benzin, the vapour of chloroform, etc.”

One old friend, a professor named Miller, made a habit of dropping by at breakfast time every Friday, so he said, to see if anyone was dead.

The lengths these men went to in the name of science is unheard of today. As the book jacket notes, Ether Day is a little known anniversary, yet without the actions of these men there would have been greater suffering in this world. They were not heros, either – just men trying to make money or a name for themselves, who fell into a bizarre chain of events that would send them all down a crazy rabbit hole and eventually break them.

Author Julie Fenster has brought the memory of these men out of the past and placed it firmly into our awareness with ETHER DAY. I commend her for choosing her subject wisely and keeping this discovery relevant, in a new way. ( )

This relatively short work details the interesting history of the "discovery" of anesthesia in the mid 19th century through the perspectives of three men who arguably accomplished the feat. The strength of the book is its subject matter (the discovery and implications of nitrous oxide, ether and chloroform) and the interesting characters involved. Less interesting was the detail surrounding the various claims for preeminence as the discoverer. A recommended read, although perhaps more time could have been devoted to the enormous changes that anesthesia caused in the medical world. ( )

Who knew that the popular use of ether as an anesthetic would be a story of such tragic characters whose lives would have so much pain because of that which brought so much relief to others? Ether in surgery was demonstrated for the first time in 1846 - it quickly became standard in surgery, but it was not without struggle. ( )

I found most of the book seemed to consist of a description as to who first decided to use ether as an anaesthetic. I found this a trifle boring and confusing and did not finish reading the book. ( )

What a fascinating read!

Years ago, I used to want to be an anesthesiologist… but then I lowered my sights to nursing school—but still with some intent of becoming an anesthetist. (anesthesiologist = doctor ; anesthetist = specially trained technician)

Eventually I decided that the medical field was NOT at all for me, yet I still have a strong interest in many things medical—including, certainly, anesthesia.

This book supports the old saying that life is stranger than fiction. The events leading to and following the discovery of the anesthetic qualities of nitrous oxide and sulfuric ether are quite boggling—one of which is the fact that people were having fun at ‘gas parties’ and ‘ether frolics’ for years while patients, without anesthesia, screamed in horror as a limb was amputated or a tumor cut from living, feeling tissue.

Morton, Wells, and Jackson’s stories are sad ones, really… especially, in my opinion, Wells’, for he seemed the best humanitarian of that lot. Morton was driven by greed, pure and simple. Jackson, perhaps something in between.

I try to pick up a nonfiction book now and then to add in with all the fiction I read, and this most recent bit of nonfiction indulgence was both fascinating and informative. ( )