Details how three men -- an ingenious dentist from Boston, his brilliant colleague from Harvard, and a mentally unstable geologist -- combined efforts and pioneered the use of ether, an event that put an end to pain during surgery.

Prologue: The laughing-gas joke -- Ether Day -- A blank whirlwind of emotion -- The hilarity before Ether Day -- The entertainment is scientific -- Unwilling collaboration -- Silence in the dome -- The confidence man -- Next what? -- Power struggle -- A world waiting -- Repelled by a common moment -- Charles Jackson's universe -- Horace Wells in Paris -- Chlory -- All alone at the Tombs -- In the lobby of the Willard Hotel -- Emerson's wife's brother -- Morton's Civil War -- Poison in the beams -- In Dr. Jackson's scrapbook -- Epilogue: Since Ether Day.