A member of the human race, which has long been distinguished by the use of means for producing insensibility to pain, has been called "somnambulism." The natives pretended to have first breathed, during the inhalation of gas. Egyptian annals inform us, that prior to the year 5709 B.C., the inhabitants of the Nile employed certain drugs, to render themselves unconscious of suffering, by the use of narcotic vapours. The Chinese laid claim to the discovery of anaesthesia, and maintained, that it was first produced in the year 2299, when they began to use lung gas, for the purpose of preventing pains in surgical operations.
