The colorless liquid ether was first synthesized about 1540 by Valerius Cordus (1515-1544), who called his discovery "sweet oil of vitriol" and described its medicinal properties. Paracelsus (1493-1541), a contemporary of Valerius, noted that the "oil" induced sleep in chickens when added to their feed. Frobenius (Froben) named the liquid "ethereal spirits" or "ether" in 1730.

In the 1790s, doctors at the Pneumatic Institution in Bristol, England used ether inhalation to treat patients with consumption ( tuberculosis). The Institution's director Humphry Davy then discovered the pain-alleviating and exhilarating effects of inhaling nitrous oxide. Davy's student Michael Faraday noted the same results from inhaling ether in 1818. "Ether frolics" soon became popular, especially among medical students in the United States.

It was probably one of these entertainments that inspired the first use of ether as an anesthesia in 1842. A Rochester, New York, chemistry student, William Clark, administered ether to a Miss...