A medicine called chloric ether has been in use since 1831. It consists of a solution of chloroform in spirits of wine. It is somewhat variable in strength, but usually contains about twelve per cent. of its volume of chloroform. Dr. Henry Jacob Bigelow of Boston tried this by inhalation, as well as other substances, when Dr. Morton first used sulphuric ether, but he did not succeed with it in causing insensibility to pain. Mr. Jacob Bell of London tried the chloric ether in the beginning of 1847, and succeeded in causing insensibility with it in some cases.[34] After this time the chloric ether was exhibited occasionally in St. Bartholomew’s and the Middlesex hospitals, and in the private practice of Mr. Lawrence, but it did not come into general use, owing to its expense, and its frequently failing to cause insensibility. The relation of chloroform to chloric ether is exactly the same as that of opium to laudanum, and no one acquainted with this circumstance could doubt for a moment that chloroform inhaled alone would produce the effects which it did when inhaled from its solution in spirit; the only uncertainty about the matter that could possibly exist would be whether it might not be too strong for use in its undiluted state. The true nature of the so-called chloric ether was, however, known to very few persons. It did not enter into the pharmacopœias, and it was mentioned in very few of the works on materia medica. I examined a specimen of it, and found that its properties when inhaled were due to a volatile body containing chlorine, which evaporated first, leaving a great quantity of spirits of wine behind. I concluded that the volatile body was hydrochloric ether, and as this article is so volatile that it exists in the form of gas except in comparatively cold weather, and consequently could not be conveniently used for inhalation, I did not consider the matter any further. M. Flourens had indeed experimented on animals with undiluted chloroform, but was so struck with its great and dangerous power, that he was far from recommending its use in surgical practice. It was left for Dr. Simpson of Edinburgh, who had already the merit of having discovered the use of inhalation in midwifery, to be the first to administer chloroform in an undiluted state, and to recommend it successfully for general use. Mr. Waldie, of the Apothecaries’ Hall of Liverpool, first mentioned chloroform to Dr. Simpson, as the latter states in a foot-note to his first pamphlet on the subject. Mr. Waldie has given the following account of the circumstance in a pamphlet on chloroform.[35]