On the use of ether as an intoxicant in the North of Ireland / [Harry Napier Draper].

  • Draper, Harry Napier.
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the use of ether as an intoxicant in the North of Ireland / [Harry Napier Draper]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    idea that there are fair consumers of Hoffmann's anodyne and perles d’ether, for whom ether has never been prescribed, quite prepare one for the discovery that there is in the northern part of Ireland a number of people who, forswearing alcohol, supply its place with ether; a race to whom ether is what koumiss is to a Kalmuck, ava to a South Sea Islander, absinthe to a certain class of Frenchmen, or gin and whiskey to their more immediate neighbours. It is not the medicinal con¬ sumption of opium which rules its price, nor the surgical employment of chloroform which makes its production a special manufacture, and not Dr. Collis Browne himself could have anticipated the tide of popular favour which would have set in for his palatable combination of both these anodynes. These are things not difficult to understand, for human nature is impatient of pain, and grasps at any nepenthe which pre¬ sents itself in pleasing guise; but that any condition of things should arise which should take a nauseous fluid like ether from the pharmacopoeia and the laboratory of the chemist, and make it the recognised stimulant of any set of men, and that with them it should supplant alcohol—that they should take ‘ nips’ of ether morning, noon, and night, as they would whis¬ key, and—for anything shown to the contrary—drink good luck or ratify bargains in a glass of ether, was not a thing to look for, and is, perhaps, without parallel in the history of narcotic stimulants. The facts, nevertheless, are simply as I am about to state them. They rest upon the authority of a number of gentlemen who, in their respective capacities of physicians, clergymen, ether manufacturers, and druggists, have . been applied to to furnish information on the subject, and I here wish to thank these gentlemen for their kindness in replying to the systematic series of questions addressed to them. My especial thanks are due to my friend, Dr. William