WEBVTT - The Chloroform Baronet (Part 1) 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:04.600 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:10.840 and Mild from Aaron Manky Listener discretion advised. Around eighteen 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:14.680 twenty nine, a woman from the Scottish Highlands arrived at 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:19.239 the University of Edinburgh Hospital for surgery. She had breast 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:22.279 cancer and was getting a misectomy with one of the 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:27.760 most famous and renowned surgeons in the country, James Liston. 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:33.839 Every time Liston performed surgeries, medical students crowded into the 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:38.600 theater to learn his extraordinary techniques. Sometimes the students were 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:42.040 so close to the operating table that they'd be splattered 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:46.840 with blood. Legend has it that before he began surgery, 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:49.760 Liston would shout to the med students in the audience 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:54.920 time me, gentlemen. While this brag may seem crass, it 0:00:55.000 --> 0:01:00.920 may have comforted the patient. Before anesthesia and antiseptics, patients 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:05.640 were awake during surgery and would feel every cut. The 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:09.920 best strategy a surgeon had to ease the patient's suffering 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:14.479 was to get the operation over with as quickly as possible. 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:18.760 Liston was one of the fastest surgeons in the country, 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:22.200 while most at the time took a couple of minutes 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:25.720 to amputate a limb. Liston could do it in just 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:33.360 thirty seconds. Mastectomies were particularly gruesome and painful. After taking 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:36.440 the woman from the Highlands into the medical theater and 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:41.399 securing her onto the operating table with leather straps, Liston 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:44.600 held her down with one hand and wielded a. 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:45.840 Hook with the other. 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:50.960 He used the hook to trigger warning lift the soft 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:55.640 tissue of her breast before slicing her breast with two 0:01:55.920 --> 0:02:01.400 clean cuts. As she writhed and screamed. The medical students 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:07.360 watched carefully, taking careful notes, except for one of them, 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:12.840 a nineteen year old named James Young Simpson. Simpson was 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:17.360 so disturbed and overwhelmed by the woman's pain that he 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:20.959 pushed through the crowd of fellow students and stormed out 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:26.200 of the room. Simpson was an ambitious, diligent medical student 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:31.160 who excelled in his classes, but the idea of actually 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:36.520 performing surgery made him a little uneasy. His own pain 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:40.000 tolerance was low. He wrote to a friend that he 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:43.200 couldn't so much as go to the dentist without quote 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:47.799 the stimulus to my courage of two or three glasses 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:52.400 of whiskey. The idea of inflicting the same thing or 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:57.040 worse on his patients was too much to bear. He 0:02:57.120 --> 0:02:59.840 walked out of the hospital gate and up the hill 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:05.080 to Parliament Square, where he announced to the university administrators 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:08.680 that he wanted to enroll as a clerk and study 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:14.080 law instead. The change of heart was short lived. He 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:18.320 soon returned to his medical studies and accepted the reality 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:23.480 that the surgeon had to tolerate a patient's pain just 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:27.840 as the patient did. But the mestectomy he witnessed stuck 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:30.720 with him. He wrote to a friend at the time 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:35.720 that quote all pain is per se, and especially in excess, 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:40.600 destructive and even ultimately fatal in its action and effects 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:45.480 end quote. As he returned to his medical studies, he 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:50.920 asked himself, can nothing be done to make operations less painful? 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:55.480 Little could he possibly know that this question would go 0:03:55.600 --> 0:04:00.000 on to define his medical career, and only a little 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:03.280 over a decade later he would be the one to 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:09.080 answer it. I'm Danish Schwartz and this is noble blood. 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:16.080 James Young Simpson started at Edinburgh University at fourteen, traveling 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:19.560 all the way to the city from its rural outskirts 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:24.279 in his brother's ill fitting corduroy suit. His colleague John 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:29.200 Brown described him as quote thick set, fat, sancy caalent, 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:32.400 with a wide face with dimples on his cheeks in 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:37.520 a particularly large head end quote. His early years at 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:42.400 school were miserable. Later, Simpson recalled that he felt quote 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:48.880 very very young, and very solitary, very poor, and almost friendless. 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:53.520 He initially was studying the arts, but during his first 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:57.160 year of school, a friend took him to an anatomy lecture. 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:02.839 Simpson was fascinated. He switched to medical school in eighteen 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:07.279 twenty eight, where he studied with Robert Liston the Lightning 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:13.520 Fast Surgeon. Liston thought Simpson was an exemplary student, writing 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:16.840 that he was convinced that Simpson will become a well 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:22.520 informed and excellent practitioner. Simpson finished his medical coursework in 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:26.880 eighteen thirty and then prepared his doctoral thesis so he 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:30.880 could pursue his MD. He ended up writing his thesis 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:36.480 about inflammation, which impressed his former pathology professor so much 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:41.160 that he offered Simpson a job as his assistant, and 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:44.919 so Simpson spent the next few years rising up the 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:51.839 medical ranks, pursuing leadership positions in various medical societies. During 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:56.560 that time Simpson began to develop an interest in obstetrics, 0:05:56.880 --> 0:05:59.200 or the labor and delivery of babies. 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:00.560 Pathology. 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:06.360 Professor suggested that he might be more successful as an obstetrician. 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:07.880 As opposed to a pathologist. 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:13.720 Fields like surgery, internal medicine, and pathology were competitive, and 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:17.560 in order to advance, Simpson would have to break into 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:19.440 an elite network. 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:20.680 Of established doctors. 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:26.360 This would be particularly difficult for Simpson, who came from 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:31.680 a humble background. The eighth child of a baker, Simpson 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:34.880 was so poor that on the day of his birth, 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:38.280 the doctor's fee was greater than the revenue of his 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:41.480 father's bakery for that entire year. 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:43.680 Obstetrics would be. 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:47.760 An easier field for an ambitious doctor like Simpson to 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:52.120 advance in, since it was considered a less prestigious field 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:56.560 at the time. What's more, Edinburgh had a growing maternity 0:06:56.640 --> 0:07:00.640 hospital where Simpson could establish himself, and there was quite 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:04.160 a bit of money in having a private midwife practice 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:10.800 for wealthy families. Simpson was also temperamentally well suited for obstetrics. 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:13.840 While he may have bulked at the ruthlessness of a 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:18.640 surgeon like James Liston Simpson's empathy and concern for his 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:23.600 patient's well being made him a comforting presence during childbirth. 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:27.120 The Lancet wrote of him at the time that quote 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:31.000 his winning manners, his power of entering fully and at 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:34.840 once into the mind and heart of the patient wonderfully 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:40.120 reinforced his professional sagacity and skill, And so in eighteen 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:45.880 thirty six Simpson began to practice midwifery at the Maternity 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:50.800 Hospital in Edinburgh. On the side. He started lecturing about 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:55.040 midwifery at the medical school in eighteen thirty eight, and 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:58.920 even opened up a popular private practice operating out of 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:03.560 his townhouse. The Landset gushed quote his house soon became 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:07.320 crowded with patients, whom he treated according to their need 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:08.880 rather than their. 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:09.760 Ability to pay. 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:15.880 When the chair of midwifrey resigned the following year, Simpson 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:19.480 applied to replace him. He had to be elected into 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:24.640 the position by his colleagues, and he had two serious disadvantages. 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:28.520 He was young, only twenty eight years old, and he 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:32.160 was a bachelor, which was a problem because many thought 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:36.320 it was unseemly for a bachelor to devote his career 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:41.679 to childbirth. So Simpson disappeared from Edinburgh for a month, 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:46.439 solved the second problem by marrying his cousin, Jesse Grindlay, 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:50.800 and returned just in time for the election. He won 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:55.160 by one vote, and afterward the couple departed for their 0:08:55.160 --> 0:09:01.400 honeymoon to celebrate. Simpson's career had skyrocketed before the age 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:05.840 of thirty. He became one of the most respected obstetricians 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:09.240 in the country, but he was still haunted by the 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:13.160 same issue that caused him to almost quit medicine when 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:16.840 he was still in school. The pain of his patients. 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:22.520 Seeing his patients suffer through childbirth disturbed him. He wrote 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:26.880 to a fellow doctor in eighteen thirty six, cannot something 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:30.720 be done to render the patient unconscious while under acute 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:34.240 pain without interfering with the free and healthy play of 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:38.840 natural functions. He didn't have a lot of options. Alcohol 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:42.839 could numb the senses, but the effect didn't last long 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:49.040 and pain still cut through drunkenness. Opium was an effective sedative, 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:53.760 but it dulled pain only partially and took a while 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:58.920 to take effect. It was also unpredictable and dangerous, as 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:03.480 it could slow a patients breathing and sometimes caused their death. 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:09.640 Simpson experimented with mesmerism and hypnosis as a potential way 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:13.679 of lessening pain, which turned out to be even less effective. 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:19.199 It wasn't until eighteen forty six that he heard promising 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:25.720 news about a potential anesthetic, a colorless, sweet smelling gas 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:30.559 called ether. Ether had been around for hundreds of years, 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:35.200 but mostly as a to put it frankly, party drug. 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:40.000 During a dinner, party or salon in the early nineteenth century, 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:45.560 guests might participate in quote ether frolics, where someone would 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:48.720 take out a glass vial filled with ether or a 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:52.360 handkerchief dipped in the chemical and pass it around for 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:56.960 everyone to inhale. Sometimes people would even drink it straight. 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:01.960 After seeing the numbing effects of eath on partygoers, a 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:05.560 dentist in Boston decided to see if it could be 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:11.800 used medicinally. On October sixteenth, the dentist invited scientists and 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:17.960 journalists to Massachusetts General Hospital for a public demonstration in 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:22.040 which he used ether to sedate a patient before removing 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:25.719 a tumor in his neck before a crowd of onlookers. 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:31.160 This was the first successful demonstrated use of an anesthetic 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:37.880 for surgery. News spread quickly across the pond. By December 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:43.520 James Simpson's former professor, the infamously speedy surgeon Robert Liston, 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:49.040 used ether to anesthetize a patient before amputating an infected leg. 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:53.400 The surgery took all of twenty eight seconds. The patient 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:57.719 felt nothing, and Liston is said to have exclaimed this 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:04.160 Yankee dodge, gentlemen beat zmesmerism hollow. Throughout the next couple 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:09.600 of months, surgeons across Britain and Ireland tried this new wonder. 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:14.240 Drug news reports featured patients with breathless praise for ether. 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:19.000 One proclaimed that he had the most pleasurable sensations while 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:22.920 on ether, while another said he was transported to a 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:27.600 beautiful heaven and cried with joy when her operation was 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:32.320 over without any pain at all. Impressed with the results, 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:37.520 Simpson decided to try the chemical in his own obstetric practice. 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:42.800 In January, he was tasked with facilitating childbirth for a 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:46.640 woman with a deformed pelvis, where it was likely to 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:51.839 be especially painful, maybe even fatal. He gave her some ether, 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:56.160 and not only did the woman survive the complicated surgery, 0:12:56.559 --> 0:13:01.559 she didn't feel any pain. This result was so thrilling 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:04.960 to Simpson that when he received a letter from the 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:08.080 Queen the next day to appoint him the Queen's physician 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:12.600 in Scotland. He was comparatively unmoved. He wrote to his brother, 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:16.760 flattery from the Queen is perhaps not common flattery, but 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:20.160 I am far less interested in it than in having 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:24.560 delivered a woman this week without any pain while inhaling 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:28.960 sulfuric ether. I can think of naught else. He was 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:32.800 so excited about ether that he even used it for 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:36.960 so called quote natural births because he thought that it 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:41.680 had the potential to increase survival rates while ether was 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:47.040 better than the alternatives. A few months later, Simpson's enthusiasm 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:52.640 about ether began to fade. March eighteen forty seven, a 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:55.959 twenty one year old woman in Grantham had a tumor 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:59.280 on her thigh and begged the doctor to use ether 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:03.360 in surgery to remove it. The doctor did, but she 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:07.520 was left in a weakened state after the surgery, and 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:12.720 she died two days later. Even in less fatal cases, 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:17.280 ether had a number of drawbacks. The gas had an 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:23.920 overpoweringly acidic, stinging smell that irritated the throat, even causing 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:28.280 choking for some patients. It caught fire if it was 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:31.880 too close to a candle or gas light. It was 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:36.880 also cumbersome to use. It was stored in heavy glass bottles, 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:40.120 which were a nuisance to carry up and down, and 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:45.560 acted very slowly, requiring a few minutes of inhaling before 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:49.520 patients were knocked out. For a woman giving birth who 0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:53.840 was already under a lot of physical stress, taking deep 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:58.200 breaths of an awful, smelling, acidic, stinging gas for ten 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:03.720 minutes was a difficult an unpleasant task. Simpson wanted to 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:08.680 find a better solution. Over the summer and fall of 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:13.160 eighteen forty seven, he did a series of experiments with 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:16.960 different chemicals to see if they could be used for surgery. 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:23.720 Because Simpson had no training in chemical research, these experiments were, 0:15:24.600 --> 0:15:29.200 let's say, a little informal. He didn't take notes on 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:33.680 his experiments, but letters from the time and memoirs written 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:37.400 by Simpson and his colleagues much later give us a 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:41.280 general sense of what went on. He got samples of 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:45.000 any substance that someone might be able to inhale, and 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:48.640 invited his friends over to his house to test them out. 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:52.360 His friends and assistants would sit around the dinner table 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:56.080 and pass around whatever chemical Simpson. 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:56.520 Brought that day. 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:03.560 The group tried out ethyl nitrate, beans in carbon disulfide, actone, 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:08.240 and Dutch liquid, but all of them had significant side effects. 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:13.800 They smelled like rotting cabbage, or produced intolerable ringing sensations, 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:18.320 or sometimes did nothing at all. Sometimes Simpson would try 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:21.600 them out himself, and his wife would find him passed 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:26.400 out on the basement floor. Simpson's neighbor recalled that quote 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:30.520 these experiments were performed at late night or early morn 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:34.680 when the greater part of mankind were soundly anesthetized in 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:40.440 common sleep. In October, one of Simpson's friends recommended he 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:46.160 try chloroform. Simpson was already familiar with some experiments other 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:50.920 physicians had tried with chloric ether chloroform diluted with alcohol, 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:56.480 which produced light, dizziness and intoxication, but he didn't realize 0:16:56.520 --> 0:17:01.720 that undiluted chloric ether or chloroform hadn't been tried yet 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:06.960 as an anesthetic. When Simpson obtained some chloroform later that month, 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:11.960 he was skeptical. It was heavier than water, which suggested 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:16.439 that it might be hard to vaporize, but on November fourth, 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:20.919 eighteen forty seven, he decided to give chloroform a try. 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:25.320 Sitting around the dinner table were his typical surgery buddies, 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:29.239 but also his wife, her sister, her niece, and her 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:32.880 brother in law. He poured a little bit of chloroform 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:36.119 in a glass for his three colleagues, and they all 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:43.160 inhaled As his family looked on. The drug took effect immediately. 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:48.920 Everyone started drunkenly, laughing and talking, finding each other unusually 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:55.160 intelligent and charming. As Simpson witnessed the intoxication of his guests, 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:58.720 he thought, this is far stronger and better than ether. 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:01.879 The next day, he knew he was lying on the 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:04.800 floor looking up at the ceiling. He saw one of 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:09.720 his colleagues sprawled out under a chair, mouth agate, unconscious 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:13.760 and snoring. Simpson heard a thump and turned to see 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:17.480 the other man under the table, flailing his legs before 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:21.960 tiring himself and raising his head in a stupor. As 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:25.600 they came to the three were so thrilled at the 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:30.760 results that they decided to try again this time around. 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:33.800 His sister in law even decided to join the party. 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:38.879 She inhaled, deeply, folded her arms across her breast, and, 0:18:39.040 --> 0:18:43.240 according to Simpson's recollection, she fell asleep while yelling I'm 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:47.280 an angel, Oh, I'm an angel. The party lasted until 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:48.760 three a m. 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:50.120 I want to take a. 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:54.240 Brief moment here for any slightly younger listeners of Noble Blood, 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:59.000 just to remind you that, under no conditions, you absolutely 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:04.119 should not through any parties where you inhale noxious substances. 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:08.120 This was a terrible idea, and though the end result 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:12.560 was historically significant, do not attempt to do this at home. 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:17.239 I repeat, absolutely never attempt to do anything like this 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:18.040 at home. 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:18.800 Okay. 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:24.560 The next day, Simpson contacted a manufacturer to get him 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:28.600 more of this seeming miracle drug, but this time it 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:32.240 wasn't for himself, for his friends. He was ready to 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:37.800 try it on patients. On November eighth, eighteen forty seven, 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:43.119 only four days after Simpson's three am chloroform party, a 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:48.760 woman named Jane Carstairs entered the Edinburgh Maternity Hospital ready 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:53.480 to give birth. She was understandably nervous. It was her 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:58.000 second pregnancy, and her first ended after three days of 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:02.000 labor and resulted in the death of the child. Jane 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:05.840 hadn't slept in days. When she arrived at the hospital. 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:10.200 James Simpson had rolled a handkerchief into a cone, dipped 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:13.800 it in chloroform, and put it over the patient's nose 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:19.080 and mouth. Twenty five minutes later, Jane Carstairs woke up. 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:23.080 She told Simpson that she was grateful to finally get 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:26.120 some sleep before giving birth, but she was a bit 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:29.399 worried that something had gone wrong because she no longer 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:33.560 felt any of the pain from contractions. Moments later, the 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:37.760 nurse brought in her child, a baby girl who had 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:42.679 already been safely born. Jane was so dumbfounded that she 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:46.080 didn't believe that the child in front of her was hers. 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:52.560 On that day, James Young Simpson was elated. He had 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:56.119 done it. He had found a substance that was easy 0:20:56.160 --> 0:21:00.520 to administer and he believed could insure a quick, painless 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:04.159 childworth now he just needed the rest of the world 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:09.680 to catch up. That's the end of part one of 0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:13.480 our two part episode on James Young Simpson, But keep 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:16.760 listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a little 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:26.199 bit more about that miraculous first chloroform baby. If you 0:21:26.320 --> 0:21:30.439 go to any modern obstetrician, it's a common sight to 0:21:30.480 --> 0:21:34.680 see a bulletin board with letters and Christmas cards featuring 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:38.960 the cherubic babies that the doctor helped deliver. It's a 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:42.280 sweet thing for a doctor to keep in touch with 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:46.080 the baby he or she brought into the world. James 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:49.520 Young Simpson agreed. He kept in touch with the baby 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:55.040 he delivered painlessly to Jane Carstairs, exchanging letters as the baby. 0:21:54.680 --> 0:21:57.920 Girl grew up. He also kept a photo of. 0:21:57.800 --> 0:22:02.080 Her on his desk, referring to her as Saint Anesthesia 0:22:02.480 --> 0:22:06.240 because of the pious expression on her face. It's a 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:11.960 common misconception that the baby's name actually was Anesthesia. And 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:15.520 while I will say that would be a beautiful name 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:19.159 for a baby girl, it was only a nickname. Her 0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:23.360 real name was Wilhelmina. But for anyone looking for a 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:27.760 unique baby name, Anesthesia is right there waiting for you. 0:22:35.280 --> 0:22:39.119 Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and 0:22:39.200 --> 0:22:42.760 Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me 0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:47.560 Dana Schwartz. Writers for Noble Blood are Hannah Johnston, Hannah'swick, 0:22:47.960 --> 0:22:52.520 Paul Jeffy, Natasha Laski, and me Dana Schwartz. The show 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:56.320 is edited and produced by Jesse Funk and Nomes Griffin, 0:22:56.760 --> 0:23:02.360 with supervising producer Rima il KLi and executive producers Aaron Manke, 0:23:02.720 --> 0:23:07.240 Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, 0:23:07.480 --> 0:23:11.800 visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen 0:23:11.840 --> 0:23:12.840 to your favorite shows.