The Sun.
London, England, 1853-12-02 00:00:00

ANESTHETIC VIRTUES OF ETHER.

(From the Zoist for October. )
TIIE PROTEST AND PETITION OF JAMES ESDAILE, ESQ
M.D., SURGEON, 11.141.1.C.5., TO THE MEMBERS THE AMERICAN CONGRESS. OF
Respectfully sheweth,—That the writer, a British
subject, and a surgeon in the East India Company's
Service, has read with great astonishment the following
statement in a report of the Select Committee appointed
by the United States Government, to decide who dis-
covered the anaesthetic virtues of ether, so that Congress
might bestow upon him a reward of 100,000 dollars.
The report says :
" At various periods, and in various ages, hope has been
excited in the human breast that this great agent (the
weans of producing insensibility to pain) had been found ;
but all proved delusive, and hope as often died away, until
the discovery now under consideration burst upon the
world from our own country and in onr own day. Then,
and not till then, was the time-cherished hope realis
that the knife would loose its sting, and that blood might
follow its edge without pain."
take theliberty
In defence of truth and justice, I must
to inform Congress, that this statement is notour
commit,
correct, but is perfectly untrue, and t only in-
h ignorant or
tee have been greviously misled by culpablyt
of suppressing
corrupt witnesses— corrupt to the
+,„ what is stated in the
important evidence oPee*d
assertion, I have respect-
report. In support of. this el in April, 1845, hay-
fully to represent to Congress, that;al performing a painless
ing succeeded on the flit
operation upon a
Pere•elinfejrtththeer,maenidmeriwicthtrasuncche'sulcceprsos;
aecuted the subject still bad performed seventy-threeestdo.
that in eight montfany of them of the gravest
This Messrs.
whiCh p painless operationst,mrof
scription ; acre!, London:, winaBlBu46.• work is
cailLollefirn,a, ILeA
ni_anueries.
m-meeeriste in
India and was immediately re- '
In July, 1846, I reported to
atrodsthoef
printed in 17,f India, that I had performed
Governraec
sinless operations, and offered " to satisfy
one hundred„,„ber opfpersons, in the Government had
anY2,7i,e of the truth of my costatements." The Go-
eeenue--t-'herenpon appointed a committee to report
:peronarannaesmeric operations to be performed by me in
their presence. Six severe operations were performed
by me in the presence of the committee during a fort-
night that they sat, and the committee arrived at the
following general result on the question of pain during
the mesmeric surgical operation witnessed by them :
"
That in three severe cases, there is no proof v Weyer
that any pain was suffered ; and that, in the three other
cases, the manifestations of pain during the operation are
opposed by the positive statement of the patient that no
pain was experienced."
The Government in remarking upon the report of the
committee to the chairman, said :

" So far has the possibility of rendering the most serious
surgical operations painless to the subject of them been, in
his Honour's opinion, established by the late experiments,
performed under the eye of a committee appointed for the
purpose, as to render it incumbent on the Government to
afford to the meritorious and zealous officer, by whom the
subject was first brought to its notice, such assistance as
may facilitate his investigations, and enable him to prose-
cute his interesting experiments, under the most favour-
able and promising circumstances. With this view, his
Honour has deteriained, with the sanction of the supreme
Government, to place Dr. Esdaile, for one year, in charge
of a small experimental hospital, in some favourable situa-
tion in Calcutta • in order that he may, as recommended
by the committee, extend his investigations to the appli-
cability of this alleged agency to all descriptions of awes,
medical as 'well as surgical ; and of all classes of patients,
European as well as native."
During the year of experiment, forty
capital mesmeric
operations were performed in the Mesmeric Hospital,
and at tho and of the year putmew You! 40442:tr-OaM

in a minute of the Governor-General in Council, and
was rewarded by being made a Presidency surgeon of
Calcutta, that the natives might continue to enjoy the
s benefits of mesmerism. So that painless surgery by
I means of mesmerism had been reduced by me to a re-
gular every-day system in Bengal, long before either had
been heard of. Of which fact., Congress may still farther
satisfy themselves, by referring to Dr. Htiffnagle, Consul
for the United States, at Calcutta, who in October,
1846, assisted at the removal of a scrotal tumour weigh-
ing 103 lbs. ; of which the patient was quite uncon-
scious, and ultimately perfectly recovered.
The simple and notorious fact is, that painless surgery
by means of mesmerism, years before ether was heard
of, was as common in my hospitals as it has since be-
come in Europe under the influence of chloroform, and
nearly three hundred capital mesmeric operations had
been performed by me before leaving India two years
ago.
This being the actual state of the case regarding the
history of painless surgery, the American Congress will
perceive that I am fully justified in asserting that their
committee have been misled by ignorant or corrupt wit-
nesses ; and that, however deserving of reward the dis-
coverer of ether may be, he was only copying by a drug
what had been already done by myself and others, by a
much safer and pleasanter natural power mercifully
im-
planted in the human constitution. Congress will, I
doubt not, be indignant at the daring and unprincipled
suppression of evidence that I Lave exposed to them,
and will he at a loss to imagine the motives for such an
offence. As politicians, the members of Congress must
be aware of the perverting, distorting, unfair represen-
tations of party spirit, by which history itself has be-
come "a lie," according to a celebrated English states-
man. Unfortunately this vice is not confined to politics,
but exists in all professions, and in an intensely dis-
graceful degree, I lament to say, in that of medicine.
Mesmerism from its birth has been excommunicated
by the doctors without knowledge or examination, and
all the medical journals having rashly and ignorantly
pronounced against it, afterwards conspired together in
defence of their wrong-doing, and trusted to extinguish
the obnoxious doctrine by keeping the medical profession
and the public in total ignorance of the matter. Theisr
have hitherto succeeded so well in this, that it is pos-
sible the medical witnesses examined by your committee
may only have been labouring under the most gross
ignorance in giving their evidence ; but the American
Congress will not lower itself so much in the eyes of the
civilised world as to adopt the verdict of an ignorant
and incompetent jury. If, on the other hand, it shall
appear that important evidence has been deliberately
suppressed by the witnesses, then the world will expect
that Congress in its wisdom and justice will repudiate
the report of its committee, and severely punish those
who would mislead it.
It is with no inteition of competing for the dollars in
question that I have taken the liberty to address you
(although the man who proved that painless surgery
could be practised on a whole people, might look for
some reward), as these seem irrevocably destined to
“ one of three citizens of the
United States," who had
the sense to seek for some drug by which to imitate
nwehwa t
judicial
ehadial
inquiryalre ady r
edcoonme
mbeyn
demesmerism.
bby
theßut in the
determine which of my three imitators is tonebniemthi luckycommittee,
gs
e r, ets o
winners of the dollars, I respectfully petition Congress to be permitted to adduce proof in support of what I
have now advanced, by which an honourabletopportunity
will be afforded for correcting the errors commit-
tee'sinesili
3 report, and Congress will be saved the h
sanctioning by its high authority another of the lies of
history.

I have the honour to be,
Your most obedient servant,
JAMES ESDAILE. M.D.
Fairmount, Perth, Scotland,
Bth August, 1853.

TOTAL LOSS OF THE BARQUE MERIDIAN

ON AMSTERDAM ISLAND.

( From the Overland Commercial Gazette, Oct. 18.)
Pon Louis, Oct. 18.—The wreck of the Meridian,
and the incidents connected with this sad event, pos-
sessing more than usual interest, we have been anxious
to give in our Overland a more detailed account than
has yet appeared. We have been seconded in our at-
tempt by several passengers from that ill-fated vessel,
who have most willingly and kindly placed at our dis-
posal their written notes, and have also afforded us
much information verbally. It is, therefore, with great
satisfaction that we publish the following narrative, con-
fident as we are that it is correct and impartial.
The Meridian, a barque of 579 tons register, Captain
Richard Hernaman, commander, left Gravesend on the
4th of June last, with 26 chief cabin passengers, 58
steerage passengers, and a valuable cargo, for Sydney,
New South Wales. She was a very fine vessel of her
class, A 1 at Lloyd's for 13 years, and only a year old.
Her timbers and fittings were of live oak and teak and
her iron work was of a very superior description.
The spars of the Meridian were of great size and
strength, being, indeed, large enough for a vessel of
900 tons, and these enabled her to carry a great
press of sail, though they also made her very crank, and
consequently very uncomfortable as a passenger ship.
She had a remarkably fine passage up to the 20th de-
gree of south latitude, but afterwards she was delayed
by calms, contrary winds, and squally weather, especially
atter passing the Cape of Good Hope, soon after which
she encountered a rather smart gale. It did not, how-
ever, last very long, but on the night of the 23d of
August, when the vessel was in about lat. 38 50 S, and
long. 74 20 E, a heavy gale sprang up, and the captain
altered his course, and bore tip for the island of Amster-
dam instead of St. Paul's, which he wished to si4ht, in
order to correct an error which he imagined might exist
in his chronometer. The gale increased the next day,
and the weather was very thick, but the course steered
E by S enabled the vessel to go freely before the wind.
A few minutes before seven o'clock a sea struck the ves-
sel, and partially inundated the 'tween decks, after
which the captain ordered the course to he altered to E.
About a quarter past 7 in the evening, just as the tea.
things in the cuddy had been cleared away, and the chil-
dren (of whom there were 41 on board) were being put to
bed, a sudden shock made the vessel stagger violently.
At first it was supposed that the Meridian had run foul
of another vessel, there being no look-out on the fore-
castle ; but five or six more violent shocks, and a peculiar
grating sound at the bottom of the vessel, convinced the
passengers that she had struck upon rocks and such
proved to be the case, for the Meridian had gone ashore
on the south-western point of the island of Amsterdam..
sTthaiersc,apatnadinN,v Ilasposnwethpet
ofiffrsthy a seaalarm, almostrushed uipmmthediat
the poop
afterwards. The officers and crew, and some of the male
second-cabin passengers, sought refuge in the rigging and
maintop, and the passengers in the chiefcabin and
second cabin awaited thereed. the certain death which
foraofttihmeeseseeeonnid cabin
edimpa mg over them. The situa-
tion Passengers was distressing in the
extreme. Almost as so on as the ship struck large quan-
tities of water poured down the hatchways, and the
cabins on the lee side
ofthe
starboardside,
'tween decks filled so fast,
that it was with the utmost difficulty
where
they
e3t,he p a
s sen
gers got over to theremainedfor more than two hours up to
their waists in water,
and many of them having no other covering than their
night clothes. They were rescued from this position by
about half-past ten o'clock in consequence of the
exertions of Mr. Edward Tulloch, the second mate,
Mr. 'Worthington, the third mate, and Charles Snow,
one of the seamen, and were placed in the cuddy.
About half-past one o'clock the main-mast which bad
been gradually sinking for some time, fell over the
side, with all the rigging standing, towards the rocks,
thus forming a bridge by which the passengers'
might cross over from the wreck to the shore. At the
same time the vessel parted in two, at the after hatch-
way, and when the morning dawned nothing was seen of
the fore part of the vessel but a small portion of the
forecastle. The poop, however, remained entire, and
afforded some kinddeemed oef shelter
safe toattempt to the majority
a of
passage
pa
sengers
, till it was.
t:
the shore. This was safel by Worthington)sx o'clock on the
following morning. Mr. and Snow, as
well as Mr. Tulloch, again making themselves conspi-
cuous by their gallantry in helping the women and
children over. The only persons who lost their lives
were the captain, the chief cabin cook, Thomas George,
and a Swiss steerage passenger named Pfau.
For the first two nights the men and most of the
women and children lay down on the bare rocks, with
no other covering than the clothes in which they stood
upright, but providentially they had been supplied as
soon as they landed with abundance of new flannel and
red and blue serge shirts, which formed part of the cargo,
and were cast on shore. A small quantity of provisions
was also got together, but not more than enough for ten
days' consumption, and that according to a dietary
scale, which was barely sufficient to support life. The
first two days a biscuit a day was served out to adults,
but this ration was afterwards reduced to half a biscuit
afo all hands,
pr
oundoffr coshhilpdorrekn
each,
t
h,hnt;
the
daysevrest h
of
ttheeythimacel
that
they remained on the south-west portion of the island a,
herring a day and half of a mouldy biscuit formed the
chiefo n pt ahret
tohf i
rt
dh e
di ra
ymael at ne
afters
tohf e subsistence
g
general move was
made to a point about a third of a mile distant from the
wreck, where it had been found practical to ascend the
r ewe t
aclniffd,
aosnigtnhael tpoopst d,
oef
which c h
wainthetn4amr al s
encampmentrts,
t sw,was fdo ryma
red
sd ,
oinfgwhfoiltleoflwainnnge, l
atottrsaereNt-eed theasa fig
was cruising about the island,
and, b This, on the morn-
ano.tice of a whaler who
in consequence of a gale sprangwhichu
but who wasup unableto
hold,
any communication with the passengers until the
Wednesday morning, when he sent a boat round by
the coast, which signalised them to set out at once,
and travel in the direction from which the boat had
Come. Both parties expected that it would be impos-ible
for all who had been shipwrecked to leave the island
that very evening, but both were painfully disappointed ;
a violent gale sprang up, and drove the whaler out to
sea, and the shipwrecked emigrants, who thought that
they had, at the utmost, a day's walk before them, had to
accomplish a three days' journey of an appalling nature,
through a dense jungle, by the side of the cliffs, and with
! a still scantier allowance of food than before. When
they arrived at the point where they expected to be
embarked, on the north-eastern side of the island, the
vessel was not there, and for two days they subsisted on
I raw cabbage and a few limpets. Most happily for
all, on Monday, Sep. 5, when there was only cabbage
enough remaining for a single day, and water was only
procurable at the distance of a mile, a distance which it
was impossible for many of them in their exhausted and
emaciated state to have walked, they were taken off by
Captain Ludlow, of the barque Monmouth, belonging
to the United States, the whaler already referred to.
On board of this vessel they received every attention
that a large-hearted benevolence could suggest, and
they reached Maui-hilts just three weeks after they had
been rescued from a triple death by drowning, cold,
and starvation'