Ether/Or

4: By Principle or By Rule

Listen on

Episode notes

Chloroform's ease of use and lack of side effects compared to ether made it an attractive choice for doctors and patients, but as its use spread across the country, doctors and dentists using it would discover it could have sinister consequences both for their patients, and for themselves, and questions about its safety would set Edinburgh against London in an argument about its use.

Featuring:

Dr Sophie Boles, trainee anaesthetist, London

Dr David Wilkinson, consultant anaesthetist and former Laureate of the Wood Library-Museum of Anaesthesiology

Dr Christine Ball, consultant anaesthetist, Laureate of the Wood Library-Museum of Anaesthesiology, and honorary curator of the Geoffrey Kaye Museum of Anaesthetic History, Melbourne

Alan Jenkins, broadcaster and journalist, as the voice of James Young Simpson.

Music by Nicola Chang

Podcast Artwork by Matthew Johnston

Written, recorded and edited by Dr Matthew Heron.

Executive Producer Joel Myers