They will wonder, too, as we may, when we study the history of the discovery of anæsthetics, at the quietude with which habitual miseries are borne; at the very faint impulse to action which is given by even great necessities when they are habitual. Thinking of the pain of surgical operations, one would think that men would have rushed after the barest chance of putting an end to it as they would have rushed to escape from starving. But it was not so; the misery was so frequent, so nearly customary, deemed so inevitable, that, though it excited horror when it was talked of, it did not excite to strenuous action. Remedies were wished for and sometimes tried, but all was done vaguely and faintly; there was neither hope enough to excite intense desire, nor desire enough to encourage hope; the misery was "put up with" just as we now put up with typhoid fever and sea-sickness, with local floods and droughts, with the waste of health and wealth in the pollution of rivers, with hideous noises and foul smells, and many other miseries. Our successors, when they have remedied or prevented them, will look back on them with horror, and on us with wonder and contempt for what they will call our idleness or blindness or indifference to suffering. FOOTNOTE: [1] Those only are here reckoned as discoverers from whose work may be traced not merely what might have been the beginning of the discovery, but the continuous history of events, consequent upon the evidence of its truth. Long, it is true, might under this rule be excluded; yet his work cannot fairly be separated from the history. Of course, in this, as in every similar case, there were some who maintained that there was nothing new in it. Before 1842 there were many instances in which persons underwent operations during insensibility. There may be very reasonable doubts about what is told of the ancient uses of Indian hemp, and mandragora; but most of those who saw much surgery before 1846 must have seen operations done on patients during insensibility produced by narcotics, dead-drunkenness, mesmerism, large losses of blood or other uncertain and often impracticable methods. Besides, there were many guesses and suggestions for making operations painless. But they were all fruitless; and they fail at that which may be a fair test for most of the claims of discoverers--the test of consequent and continuous history. When honour is claimed for the authors of such fruitless works as these, it may fairly be said that blame rather than praise is due to them. Having seen, so far as they profess, they should not have rested till they could see much further. JENNER AND PASTEUR SIR J. RISDON BENNETT, M.D. [Sir J. Risdon Bennett was a leading physician of London for many years, holding the highest offices as an educator and administrator. The article from which the following extracts have been taken appeared in the _Leisure Hour_, 1882.]