I was talking to a guy the other day, and he used the comparison that something felt like being “put out by ether”. I can’t remember what the something was, but it got me to thinking about how many people that was a useful comparison for. I’m in my 40s and always considered ether as something long retired by my time. I was thinking that it would only be older people who needed to have surgery as kids, but not to young to remember it, but not old enough to have had something newer.
But thinking more I realized that the prime Tonsillectomy years seem to be 9-16 or so and for people in their 70s and 80s it may not be that rare as my first impression. Plus I have no idea if it was used longer in other countries.
How many people do have an idea what it is like to be “put out by ether?”
I don’t (I’ve never been put under) but I was just talking to my father about him getting his tonsils out as a little boy, and how they dripped ether on a mask. He’s 72.
“Ever has ether used on you that you can remember fairly well” ???
Are you writing this under the influence of ether? Both your question and your thread title could have been phrased more intelligibly.
I was one of those who was anaesthetized by ether when I had my tonsils taken out as a kid. I’m not yet 60.
I didn’t get to see the mechanism – they placed a hard plastic mask over my nose and mouth and there was an odd smell. It didn’t take long for me to go to sleep.
I’m 62 and can remember it being done when I broke my arms, once when I was 6 and again when I was 7. That was 55 years ago. About all I can remember is that it had a weird smell (don’t ask me to describe it, it has been 55 years after all, the weird is all I remember) and unlike current anathesitics, I seem to recall you could ‘feel’ it acting on you, putting you out. These days, it’s more like just drifting peacefully off to sleep.
When Celtling cut her eyelid on her high chair (a plastic seam that had not been sanded properly) they used ether to put her out so they could get the stitches in. 2008-ish.
My tonsillectomy was in 1962. The doc put a cloth pad over my face and dripped ether onto it. I was in some distress, so he kindly arranged the cloth so my nose was outside it (I remember him cutting a hole in it, but I wasn’t a very good observer at the time.)
Then there was a very clear hallucination of sliding, feet-forward, down a steep slope. Then nothin’ till the recovery room and spitting up a lot of blood (ick.)
Dammit, stupid new laptop I got that has a touchpad that I manage to scrape with the base of my thumb all the time, moving the cursor around in the sentence while typing. Usually I end up with one word inside another and it gets flagged as a misspelling, so I notice to fix it.
I had ether when I had four teeth pulled when I was twelve. They were making room in my mouth for teeth straightening.
They put a mask over my mouth and nose. The odor of the gas was strong, sickeningly sweet and chemical-y. I remember darkness coming up from the sides of my head to close over my face, and then I felt them repositioning my hands.
Then I was being shaken awake, sans four bicuspids. I barely made it to the parking lot before I was barfing.
I’m 59 and had a tonsilectomy/adenoidectomy at age 4. I remember the ether mask, too, and that awful smell. And like all kids of that era, I got a big ole bowl of ice cream when I woke up after, which I promptly threw up.
A couple times when I was maybe 5 or 6 but I remember it. For some reason I found it more interesting than frightening. First time I had IV sedation (around 8 or 9) it scared the crap out of me; not seeing or hearing the process freaked me out.
I had my tonsils out when I was 5. I distinctly remember the anesthesiologist holding me on his lap, and in a calm, deep voice telling me that the mask he had would let me talk to Mickey Mouse. Like CalMeacham I remember a hard plastic mask over my mouth and nose. I don’t remember being scared at all. Then I woke up in my hospital room.
The stuff is still ubiquitous, just not so as an anesthetic. It is still commonly used as an industrial solvent and in starter fluid for internal combustion engines.
Before anyone even goes there, the flammability of and petroleum additives in ether products available today make it extremely dangerous to inhale.
Yeah – my father also mentioned when he had his appendix out when he was a boy, and they strapped his arm down to poke his arm. They hadn’t really explained what they were doing. He did not like that, and leaped off the table!
He also couldn’t remember if he got ice cream after his tonsils came out. That’s the part I would remember!
There’s usually an option in the settings that will turn off the touchpad while you are typing, as well as a button the keyboard to manually turn it off.
