apart of the side rails. This led to activity in the provision of devices for holding the slats to the rails and later to the provision of bracing systems applied to prevent spreading of the rails, a branch in which inventors are still finding their considerable profit.

The first recorded U. S. patent in the bed art, which I have been able to find, is in Vol. 3, on page 397, of the Restored Patents; bearing date of March 27, 1815. This is in fact the first United States patent on record for an article of household furniture and while the records of the early patents are in a great measure missing and probably irrecoverably lost it is, as I hope to show, exceedingly improbable that should all the missing be happily restored there would be found among them any patent for household furniture earlier than this one to Peter Cooper for his "Improvement in the Cradle".

I have not reached this conclusion by intuition impelled by the fancy that it would be so pleasing a coincidence or so logical to start the whole chain of patents in the furniture art with this incunabulum. There is a line of reasoning which may be thought compelling and received as such until proof is discovered to the contrary.

But first it is indispensible to the argument to set forth the precise nature of Peter Cooper's "Improvement in the Cradle"; what was the fortunate inspiration by which he passed the bounds of mere mechanical carpentry in cradles and ascended to the level of patentable invention.

Parallel vertical posts resting upon elongated foot pieces and connected at top and bottom by mortice-andtenon joints to upper and lower cross-bars form a rectangular supporting frame. Inside this frame and spaced a short distance from one of the posts is a third vertical post through which and its near neighbor passes a rotatable horizontal shaft carrying a crown wheel "like the crown wheel of a clock" and a winding cord attached to a heavy weight. In the now consecrated phraseology of the specification writer it may be added, of course, it will be understood that the projecting terminal of the

shaft is suitably squared or otherwise treated for the reception of a convenient operating crank (not shown) which may be of any suitable or conventional type,—or as Cooper, with a shrewd glance at possible infringers puts it, "and the outer end of it furnished with a crank, either movable or fastened on it for the purpose of winding up the machine as hereafter directed."

"Between this intermediate post and the one at the other side of the frame is hung a receptacle for the child, which may be called a cradle or swing, of dimensions and form adapted to fancy and convenience." This cradle is suspended by two long bars rigidly attached to it and pivoted in the upper part of the frame. The bar on the side next the accessory post carries a stem which passes through what now-a-days would undoubtedly be an arcuate slot, but which in those unsophisticated times was just a plain hole and this stem carries a pallet which engages the crown wheel after the fashion of a clock escapement; in fact the innocent inventor says "it is like a clock". This was the happy, the golden age when the inventor or his duly accredited representative could boldly tell all he knew without fearing that the Examiner might thus be put on the scent of something smacking of anticipation before the patent was signed, sealed and delivered.

We have then here a genuine machine converting energy from one form to another. The pull of the weight presses the tooth of the wheel against the tooth of the pallet and swings the cradle, steadily engaging and disengaging on alternate sides; the innocent occupant, the heir of all the ages, the probable progenitor of future inventions, is rhymically ticked off down the stream of time, he is "put in tune with the rythm of the universe", and by the time the weight has run down no doubt the purpose of the machine is achieved and peace and quiet dwell in the household.

A cord attached to the pallet stem passes upward and is attached to a lever above the upper cross piece so that when it is desired to wind the weight the pallet may be lifted out of engagement with the crown wheel.

This patent is one of the very earliest to conclude with a veritable claim in which the subject matter of the invention is both generalized and made specific; "The principal claim to a patent right consists in giving motion to a cradle by means of weight, crown wheel and pallet.' Evidently this Peter Cooper was a man somewhat in advance of his time as far as concerned the protection which a patent right should give and the proper manner of expressing and pointing out by a concise claim that which was supposedly new as distinguished from that which was confessedly old.

This contrivance of Cooper's evidently operated upward to unitary result; being the first motor operated cradle its patentability could not be attacked on the ground of exhausted combination. Thus the application steered safely between the sharp rocks of a charge of aggregation and the yawning gulf of ExParte McNeil (100 O. G., 1976).

If any doubts arose in the breast of the examiner from the knowledge that the pendulums of French clocks had long before been made in the form of seats or swings in which highly decorative shepherdesses reclined in perpetual ease, and that such clocks were not unknown in this country at the time, he sternly suppressed them in favor of the applicant and, if we may extend to this remote period of 1815 the traditions of office practice existing at a later date, the examiner leisurely executed the necessary signatures, combed his prosperous whiskers, adjusted his silk hat, locked the office and wended his way homeward, not completely obscure, not entirely unknown.

With this knowledge of the nature of Peter Cooper's invention we may proceed in the next number of the Journal (if not forcibly prevented) with the reasons for believing it to be really the first United States patent in the line of household furniture.

[The article will not be signed until at the end of the last installment.]

ANESTHESIA.

P. J. FEDERICO, Div. 43.

Part II.

A British patent, 11,503 of 1846, having a much longer specification and a drawing was also issued to them.

On November 13, 1847, patent number 5,365 was issued to W. T. G. Morton and Augustus A. Gould, Gould assigning his rights to Morton, for an "Apparatus for Inhaling Ether".

The patents were not a financial success and in 1849 Morton petitioned Congress for a reward. He was immediately opposed by Jackson and the friends of Wells, who was now dead.

Thus began the celebrated ether controversy which was debated upon in Congress for many years. In 1854 C. W. Long was persuaded by friends to give an account of his work. On April 15, 1854, the bill, proposing to appropriate $100,000 to the discoverer of anesthesia, was up for its final reading before the Senate. A letter from Jackson acknowledging the justice of Long's claim was read. The other claimants became discouraged and the bill was allowed to die.

Morton had a great deal of trouble with his first patent. It was held valid several times but in 1862 the patent was declared invalid. (See Morton vs. The New York Eye Infirmary; Fisher's Cases, vol. 2, page 320). The syllabus of the decision says in part "The application of ether to surgical purposes was an effect produced by old agents operating by old means upon old subjects. The effect alone was new, and was a discovery; which, however novel and important, is not patentable.'

About two months after the first public demonstration in America ether was first used in England. Its use spread rapidly. The following year (1847)) Sir James Simpson discovered that the pains of labor could be successfully abolished without interfering with natural processes and adopted ether in his obstetrical practice.

Simpson experimented with the use of chloroform as an anesthetic and became satisfied with its properties. Through his influence and writings the use of the new anesthetic spread rapidly and soon largely took the place of ether in Great Britain.

The use of anesthesia in obstetrical cases by .Simpson raised a clamor of protest from clergymen and other pious individuals. Sermons were given and the alleviation of pain during childbirth denounced from the pulpit as being contrary to the teachings of the Bible. Biblical texts were quoted and the use of anesthetics was declared "to avoid one part of the primeval curse on women'. The battle raged most furiously in Scotland and in spite of the fact that Simpson wrote pamphlet after pamphlet to defend his cause it was losing ground until he himself thought of quoting from the Bible. "My opponents forget", he wrote, "the twenty-first verse of the second chapter of Genesis; it is the record of the first surgical operation ever performed, and the text proves that the Maker of the universe, before He took the rib from Adam's side for the creation of Eve, caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam." This was a stunning blow and the opposition subsided soon after.

Nitrous oxide was forgotten for a time after the death of Horace Wells in 1848. Its use was revived by Gardner Q. Colton in 1863 and through his efforts it has since. occupied a foremost place in dental surgery.

Mixtures of the different substances soon began to be used. In 1864 the A. C. E. mixture consisting of alcohol, one part, chloroform, two parts, and ether, three parts, was recommended by a committee of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of Great Britain. Later a mixture of nitrous oxide and oxygen and in 1886 the use of a mixture of chloroform and oxygen was recommended. Many other substances have been discovered to have anesthetic properties but the first three still remain the ones most commonly used.

Besides the inhalation method of anesthetizing several others have been developed; these will only be mentioned and one of them briefly discussed. Anesthesia by intra