ABSTRACT
James Young Simpson discovery of chloroform as an anaesthetic gave the world a choice: pain could be alleviated- through the use of chloroform; or it could be alleviated through the use of ether. Simpson was convinced that in chloroform he had found an anaesthetic agent ‘more portable, more manageable and powerful, more agreeable to inhale, and less exciting’ than ether, and one giving ‘greater control and command over the superinduction of the anaesthetic state’. In many circles, even in many medical circles, chloroform was within a few months spoken of as if ether had never existed, and Simpson was hailed, principally but not exclusively in Scotland, as the discoverer not only of chloroform anaesthesia, but of anaesthesia itself. When Simpson announced the discovery of chloroform anaesthesia he linked it with and restated the rules for the administration of ether which he had published in September 1847.
