Ether

The nights are drawing in, and I’m back to sewing my patchwork quilt. Here you can see a patch made out of a tie which D gave me. It was one of a batch made to commemorate the use of ether as anaesthetic by William Scott in Dumfries on 19th December 1846. The first ever use of ether was in Boston in October 1846. Before the days of internet, telephone or even transatlantic cable, the news took two months to travel to Britain, carried on a wooden paddle steamer in a letter to a surgeon in London, who used it on the same day. Also on the steamer (the “Arcadia”) was a young ship’s surgeon called William Fraser who disembarked at Liverpool, travelled to Dumfries to visit his widowed mother and three days later William Scott was giving ether a go. You can read more about it Here.