The next problem was the uniqueness of each crude thermometer—different in length and capillary diameter—and none had calibrations. Boiling water and ice—sourced from deep caves in the mountains of northeast Keelan—let them mark 0cC and 100oC on each thermometer. Since the target temperature was 140oC, but not above 160oC, where spontaneous ignition could occur, they needed calibrations higher than 100oC. The only way was to boil liquids that had higher vaporization temperatures. The only available candidate Yozef could dredge out of his memory was olive oil at 300oC. He knew that number only because his ex-girlfriend read somewhere that olive oil began smoking at about 240oC, which was a sign of breakdown products that were supposed to be bad for your health. They had been cooking with olive oil then, and Julie wanted to stop. It took some library and Internet research and talking to convince her it was okay. The olive oil would give approximate thermometer calibrations at 240o and 300o, leaving a considerable gap from 100o, but at least they’d have the target temperatures bracketed.
By the vagaries of chance, one of the trees transplanted from Earth was the olive, and a large black version was occasionally served or appeared in dishes. A check with the abbey dining hall confirmed the use of olive oil in cooking.
Yozef and several workers provided by the tradesmen assembled the final distillation test apparatus and were ready to calibrate. Yozef explained they’d assume the mercury rise in a capillary to be linear, and equal increases in temperature would lead to equal rises in the mercury. That no two thermometers were identical meant that every thermometer had to be calibrated separately. They used olive oil to estimate where 140oC should be on a given thermometer and ran the ether-producing reaction to that point—from a distance and checking the readings behind a shield with a pinhole. If the apparatus didn’t explode, they assumed the temperature was no more than 160o.
By this time, only the brewer and the glass blower of the four initial tradesmen remained active in the project. Each supplied materials and labor as requested by the abbot. In the end, it was Filtin Fuller, the glass blower’s assistant and occasional drinking companion at the Snarling Graeko, who most quickly grasped Yozef’s directions and became de facto leader of the workers. Not that any of the workers fully understood why or what they were doing, but for some reason, Filtin had faith that Yozef probably knew what he was doing. Probably.
A morning finally came for the first runs of ether. Yozef looked at the final apparatus and shook his head. He couldn’t believe they were really trying to make ether with this cluster-fuck of a setup. Back home, every safety agency and official on Earth would be screaming at them. He hoped this worked and they didn’t kill themselves or anyone else.
Although the reaction called for a continuous addition of ethanol, Yozef settled on self-contained runs of equal starting volumes and stopping the reactions after different reductions in volume. They allowed the products collected from the sidearm to cool, and Yozef smelled the products. Three of five products smelled right for ether.
Chapter 16: Guinea Pigs
By midday meal, word spread through the complex, and the afternoon found Yozef, the workers, Petros, Sistian, Diera, and more than a dozen medicants and other abbey staff gathered in an operating room. A coney lay on its back, tied by straps to a board. The rabbit-sized animal filled a similar ecological niche and was the source of some of the unidentified meat in abbey stews. Diera followed what few suggestions Yozef had for the ether application and poured the liquid onto a folded cloth and held it over the coney’s nostrils. It squealed, took several gasping breaths, and was unconscious within seconds. The palpable astonishment lasted two minutes, while everyone waited to see whether the coney lived and still breathed.
“It seems the ether puts the coney to sleep,” said Diera.
An audible sigh surfaced from the gathering, accompanied by smiles and a few exclamations.
“But does the coney feel pain and would it awaken?” She took a needle and pricked one of the paws between digits, watching for the normal withdrawal reflexes and vocal complaints. The coney never twitched.
“So much for the minor discomfort, but what about serious pain such as a surgical operation might entail?”
“Amputate a leg,” said Fitham.
The others looked at him, a little surprised at the cold-blooded suggestion from the elderly brother.
“It’s going into the pot anyway one of these nights. Let it help us see if the ether works.”
“Yes, Diera,” Sistian agreed, “go ahead and take off a leg and sew him up as if it were a person. We’ll see how the coney responds.”
Diera nodded and left the room for a few minutes, returning with a rolling cart of surgical tools, needles, the local version of catgut for sutures, and cloths for staunching blood. Another medicant assisted. She made a first cut through fur and underlying skin layers at a forepaw joint. The coney didn’t respond. She proceeded to cut quickly through the muscles and ligaments, sawed through the thin bone, and sewed a flap of skin over the exposed end of the limb. The coney never twitched, and its chest rose and fell in normal rhythm.
“Blessed by the Almighty God if I don’t think it worked like Yozef said it would,” she said in awe.
They unstrapped the coney and placed it in a cage with an old blanket on the floor as a cushion, and all retired for the evening. The next morning the coney was awake and moving about the cage, albeit slowly and obviously in discomfort.
Several of the medicants were eager to use the ether on human patients waiting for surgery. Yozef discouraged the rush, and Diera agreed and enforced that they’d run additional trials on larger animals to test dosages and effects. Subsequent results with goats and yearling cattle showed that a few drops in a leather bag with the end held over the nostrils sufficed to put the animals into a sleep, the depth of which was dependent on how long they applied the ether. Longer and larger doses confirmed it was possible to stop the animal’s breathing. After another sixday, Diera agreed they were ready.
The first patient was a pregnant young woman. Diera met with all of the complex’s medicants, the abbot, and Yozef. She started off summarizing the situation.
“The child is in breech position. The mother has been in labor for over a day, and we haven’t been able to turn the baby head down for normal birth. Prospects for both the mother and the child are grim. We don’t see any option, except to remove the baby surgically. Normally, we would use opiates to put the mother to sleep, even though it involves danger to the baby’s breathing. We lose about a third of the babies with such a procedure. In this case, we have no opiates and the only option would be to tie the mother to the operating table and remove the child as quickly as possible and sew the mother closed. We expect to lose at least half of the mothers.”
Diera paused, reached out, and picked up a small dark glass bottle containing ether. “After extensive discussion among the medicant staff and in consultation with Abbot Sistian, we have offered the option to the woman and her husband to try the ether produced by Yozef. We have warned the family of the risk of an untried procedure, and the husband and the wife have both agreed to try the ether to avoid the alternative.”
She looked around the room and continued. “In spite of our discussing this at great length, are there any final comments or thoughts?”