e administered ether to a patient and removed a tooth without
pain; the next day he repeated the experiment, and the next. Then,
filled with the immense possibilities of his discovery, he went to Dr.
J. C. Warren, one of the foremost surgeons of Boston, and asked
permission to test it decisively on one of the patients at the Boston
hospital during a severe operation. The request was granted, and on
October 16, 1846, the test was made in the presence of a large body of
surgeons and students. The patient slept quietly while the surgeon's
knife was plied, and awoke to an astonished comprehension that the
dreadful ordeal was over. The impossible, the miraculous, had been
accomplished; suffering mankind had received such a blessing as it had
never received before, and American surgery had scored its greatest
triumph. Swiftly as steam could carry it, the splendid news was heralded
to all the world, and its truth was soon established by repeated
experiments.

To tell of the work of the men who came after these pioneers in the
field of surgery and medicine is a task quite beyond the compass of this
little volume. There are at least a score whose achievements are of the
first importance, and nowhere in the world has this great science, which
has for its aim the alleviation of human suffering, reached a higher
development.

Among the physicists of the country, Joseph Henry takes a high place.
His boyhood and youth were passed in a struggle for existence. He was
placed in a store at the age of ten, and remained there for five years.
At the age of fifteen he was apprenticed to a watchmaker, and had some
thought of studying for the stage, but during a brief illness, he
started to read Dr. Gregory's "Lectures on Experimental Philosophy,
Astronomy and Chemistry," and forthwith decided to become a scientist.
He began to study in the evenings, managed to take a course of
instruction at the academy at Albany, New York, and finally, in 1826,
was made professor of mathematics there.

Almost at once began a series of brilliant experiments in electricity
which have linked his name with that of Benjamin Franklin as one of the
two most original investigators in that branch of science which this
country has ever produced. His first work was the improving of existing
forms of apparatus, and his first important discovery was that of the
electro-magnet. His development of the "intensity" magnet in 1830 made
the electric telegraph a possibility.