Homer Wells takes the opening passage from David Copperfield personally. For this reason I made Larch an ether addict. In the proper hands, ether remains one of the safest inhalation agents known. You would have to be crazy to self-administer chloroform. It requires careful monitoring and cumbersome apparatus, and the patient runs the risk of bizarre fantasies or giggling fits.
Induction is very fast.
Coleridge was a laughing-gas man, although the poet was certainly familiar with ether, too. It was unfortunate for Coleridge that he preferred opium. Ether is a kinder drug addiction to bear. After all, in both the novel and the film, Dr. Larch accidentally kills himself with ether. In the novel, he has sex just once, with a prostitute who gives him gonorrhea.