It is prudent to consider the rise of chemistry in the 19th century since
its advance improved the world so dramatically and so rapidly. The ability
to synthesize drugs, refine petroleum, improve alloys, produce fertilizer,
and manufacture synthetic fibers has changed the way we eat, travel,
medicate ourselves, store food, and make the clothing and materials that
are touching you right now. And one of the most important ways medicine
was changed in the mid-1800s was the ability for amateur alchemists to
make their own potions that had genuine and powerful effects on the
human body.
To genuinely be convinced of the effectiveness of a medicine, the time
interval from exposure to the predicted effect should be as limited as
possible. When we watch someone get poisoned in the premiere episode of
a streaming video series, it works best when the wine goblet is still in the
prince’s hand when he keels over in front of the assembled crowd. Such a
show would never work if the poison of choice required hours, or days to
deliver the fatal blow. Men have been getting drunk since before modern
times, and no one has to be convinced that too much drink leads to
debasement, dizziness, and blacking out. But it does take some matter of
time to achieve that level of drunkenness; it would be more impressive to
reach a level of stupefaction within minutes, or even seconds, when
exposed to a new substance. That is what happened in the 1830s, just at the
beginning of the chemistry revolution.
Ether frolics and laughing gas parties became all the rage along the East
Coast as America was celebrating its semicentennial. Slipshod wannabe
chemists had learned how to make ether gas and nitrous oxide, and like
itinerant evangelists, traveled from town to town to make a show of
citizens becoming intoxicated on the newfangled fumes. Imagine it’s 1839.
You are a middle-aged woman in Philadelphia, attending a public
spectacle, witnessing your husband on a stage, stumbling and incoherent
after a single exposure to a liquid-filled sponge, with not a care in the
world when the exhibitionist harms his body. Or, consider the young
medical student next to the woman, a twenty-five-year-old from rural
Georgia, who watches in stunned amazement as the man on stage becomes
insensate. What might be possible in the medical realm with this new
concoction?
Crawford Long was the medical student in the crowd in Philadelphia in
the late 1830s. He was from Danielsville, a small town ninety miles from
marcin
(Marcin)
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