My Library

was no certainty that they would always work. However, I did find out some interesting facts about anesthesia to satisfy my curiosity. In Ireland, it seems, ether was sold by the spoonful by peddlers who ladled it out at streetside each morning. In the early days, medical students often had "ether parties," much like the parties of the "black market" LSD users today. Doctors have reported that ether addiction has been quite common through the years. Captains of gasoline tankers have problems with a seagoing version of the wino. When signed on as crew, these men appear completely normal, until they are found unconscious alongside a cargo vent. I understand they are labeled "sniffers." Further, I learned the relationship between alcohol and other anesthetics. Any anesthetic produces a trail from consciousness to an unconscious state beyond which is death. The job of the anesthetist is to "put down" or place the patient in a deep unconscious state as quickly as possible, avoiding any "violent" intermediate condition (which is the area I evidently explored). The technique then is to hold the unconscious patient just above death. The major advantage of ether when it was first introduced was that it had fewer possible side effects than alcohol and offered greater control of the degree of unconsciousness. The period of consciousness following administration was quite short, and the unconscious state was quite extended before the terminal point (death) was reached. The period of consciousness following the administration of alcohol, on the other hand, is quite long. When deep unconsciousness is reached, the distance to the terminal point is much shorter. The margin is so narrow that continued administration of alcohol to a patient after he has "passed out" can well cause death. Another fact I discovered is that archaeological and geological studies of the sites of several ancient Greek and Egyptian temples of worship, where many visions and miracles took place, have indicated the probable escape of underground gases, including nitrous oxide, at and around the particular spot sometime in the past Nitrous oxide is one of the present-day anesthetics, odorless and tasteless. Some three months after this "drug" experience, which by then was almost forgotten, I developed an interest in the possibilities of data learning during sleep. I do not know what brought about this interest. Perhaps it was an outgrowth of an early academic environment coupled with my immediate observation of the teaching methods applied in the primary grades to my own children.