November 7, 1846. Every seat in the operating theater of Massachusetts General Hospital was taken. Doctors and medical students were about to witness a leg amputation. Was the pain-killing drug potent enough to keep the patient asleep?

In previous uses of anesthesia patients had undergone minor surgery. But this was a major operation and the onlookers were expecting screams of agony.

Silence prevailed as the surgeon wielded the scalpel. Silence continued during the operation. The patient was awakened to a roar of applause. Anesthesia had been used successfully.

The drug was ether. This Science Discovery book documents the struggle to convince American medical and dental practitioners of ether's effectiveness as a pain killer. The book is also about four men who fought for recognition as the discoverer of ether: Crawford A. Long, a country doctor; Charles Thomas Jackson, a prominent Boston scientist; and two dentisits, Horace Wells and William T. G. Morton.

The Gift of Magic Sleep also details the personal torture many early experimenters endured as they self-tested pain-killing drugs.

From the dust jacket