Animal magnetism superceded: Discovery of a new hypnopoietic.

The first publication in England of the discovery of ether anesthesia appeared in the "Medical Intelligence" section of the London Medical Gazette on December 18, 1846. Prior to Fulton & Stanton's discovery of this article it was long assumed that the earliest publication in England was published ten days later, on the last page of The Lancet for Saturday, December 28, 1846. The text of the "Medical Intelligence" entry in the London Medical Gazette is much more substantial than the brief notice in The Lancet. The editor of the London Medical Gazette wrote, "We learn on the authority of a highly respectable physician of Boston, U.S.,[Henry Jacob Bigelow] that a Dr. Morton, a surgeon-dentist of that city, has discovered a process whereby in a few minutes the most profound sleep may be induced, during which teeth may be extracted, and severe operations performed, without the patient being sensible of pain, or having any knowledge of the proceedings of the operator. The process simply consists in causing the patient to inhale the vapour of ether for as short period, and the effect is to produce complete insensibility." See John F. Fulton, "The reception in England of Henry Jacob Bigelow's original paper on anesthesia," New Eng. J. Med., 235 (1946) 745-746.