Atlee WL. On anaesthetic agents. Trans Am Med Assoc 3:389-390, 1850

"I have employed chloroform very extensively in surgical practice, and never, with two exceptions, with any unpleasant results. In these two cases, it was administered soon after a meal, and induced insensibility as rapidly and pleasantly as in other cases; but, as this passed off, vomiting and syncope supervened, which, lasting for a few minutes, were succeeded by entire recovery. I have very little experience in the use of ether alone, but, previously to the reported deaths by chloroform, I employed the latter almost daily. Latterly, however, I have confined myself exclusively to the employment of a mixture of chloroform and ether--one part of the former to two parts of the latter, by measure--and with the most satisfactory results. My mode of administration, and its effects, are stated in the Amer. Journ. of Med. Sciences for Oct. 1849, and are detailed in one of the pamphlets accompanying this letter. These two fluids evidently combine chemically, as a sensible evolution of heat results from their condensation."

After specifying a great number of operations in which he has used anaesthesia, he proceeds:--

"In all these cases, I have employed anaesthesia with marked advantage; and, instead of endangering life, I consider that it has greatly contributed towards its preservation by protecting the nervous system from harm. I am convinced that operations may be undertaken with it that could not be accomplished, or that would be improper, without it. So valuable do I esteem it, in the hands of the judicious practitioner, that I am compelled to view opposition to its use as originating in prejudice or ignorance, and to consider as highly censurable a refusal to administer it under circumstances of extreme suffering. Notwithstanding the number of deaths attributed to chloroform, there is, in my opinion, no agent yet discovered capable of so great an amount of good, and, used to the same extent, that has produced so little mischief. The arguments brought against the use of anaesthesia will much more forcibly condemn the employment of the best-established articles of the materia medica. When we consider the extent and indiscrimination of their use, and the non-professional character of many who have employed them, the surprise should be that so few deaths have occurred, and this circumsatnce alone offers, to my mind, one of the strongest arguments in favour of their safety."