ETHER DAY:
The Strange Tale of America's Greatest Medical Discovery and the Haunted Men Who Made It

Table of Contents

Preface - The Laughing Gas Joke

1. Ether Day
October 16, 1846

2. A Blank Whirlwind of Emotion
Surgery before anesthetics

3. The Hilarity Before Ether Ether Day
Laughing gas lectures and ether frolics

4. The Entertainment is Scientific
Gardner Colton's career

5. Unwilling Collaboration
Horace Wells and William Morton

6. Silence in the Dome
Dr. John Warren and the first painless operation

7. The Confidence Man
William T.G. Morton's scandalous career

8. Next What?
Hospitals react to the discovery of anesthetics in different ways

9. Power Struggle
Morton versus the Massachusetts General Hospital

10. A World Waiting
The discovery flashes overseas

11. Repelled By A Common Moment
Dr. Charles Jackson and William Morton

12. Charles Jackson's Universe
The old school of science and medicine

13. Horace Wells In Paris
Wells' effort at claiming credit

14. Chlory
James Y. Simpson and the discovery of chloroform in Britain

15. All Alone At the Tombs
Horace Wells' suicide

16. In the Lobby of the Willard Hotel
William Morton's campaign for money in Washington

17. Emerson's Wife's Brother
Dr. Charles Jackson and his powerful ally

18. Morton's Civil War
The use of ether in the war - for soldiers and William Morton

19. Poison in the Beams
Morton's frenzied suicide in New York

20. Dr. Jackson's Scrapbook
Jackson's descent into insanity

Epilogue
Since Ether Day

Endnotes
Bibliography
Index