February 9, 2002
Ether Day: The Strange Tale of America's Greatest Medical Discovery and the Haunted Men Who Made It by Julie M. Fenster

BCDC's rating: 2.95

The menu for this meeting: corn chips, guacamole, salsa, smoked trout, roasted garlic, crostini, jalapeno pretzels, peppermint butter cream bars, and more!

The BCDC Reading Guide for Ether Day is below.

• Were any of the men involved in the 'discovery' of etherization heroes?
• Discuss differences between patent policy (formal and informal) during the time of Ether Day and now.
• What are the different audiences for this book, and how well did the author serve each of them?
• Does it really matter who gets/got credit for the discovery of anesthesia? Did it matter back then?
• Which person in the book would you most like to have dinner with?
• What did you think about the way the information was organized, i.e., the way the story was told?
• Have any of the other medical advances had as much impact on medicine as amnesia?
• Do you think the quest for 'credit' opened up more overt 'competition' in the medical field?