Some People in Poland Drink Ether?

Hi,
I've recently been told that there are people in Poland who drink ether. Does anyone here have any experience with this, or know of people who do? What are the effects of drinking ether? Is it consumed strictly to get drunk or high, or does drinking it serve any medicinal purpose? One person who spoke with me about this said that his grandparents have been drinking a little ether each day and are still healthy in their mid-80s as a result. I'd love to hear from you about this.

Thanks a lot!
Rakky

It's a kind of drug... definately not healthy. Once I read that It was very popular before WW2 but not now, I've never met anybody who tried It.

Don't really know if this is what your're talking about, but have a look here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diethyl_ether

and here:

anesthesia-nursing.com/ether.html

Strictly, speaking they shoud be pushing up the daisies! ;

If you can access research articles Adrian Zandberg has done a paper on Ether drinking in Silesia.

It was also a major problem in Ireland and Scotland in the late 1800s.

That might shed some light on it, as the people with whom I've been discussing this are Rusyn Lemkos - many of whom were shipped to Silesia in 1947 as a result of Akcja Wisla. These folks are descended from Lemkos who were able to return to their ancestral homeland in 1957 and live there still (well, some of them, anyway).

I found a couple interesting tidbits on the Web:

"The attraction with ether was that it allowed drinkers to get drunk much quicker than with whiskey and its effects wore off fairly rapidly, thereby allowing them to get drunk several times within the one day. It was also much cheaper than whiskey."

"The effects of ether were like those of alcohol, but the drinker passed through the stages of intoxication to insensibility much more quickly. He also sobered up after only a few minutes with no hangover. One problem with drinking ether was that it turns into a gas at body temperature. To get around this, the usual technique was to drink a glass of cold water followed by a shot of ether. The water cooled the mouth and throat sufficiently to get the ether into the stomach in liquid form. A frequent side effect was violent belching of flammable gas. Since houses were lit by naked flames, ether drinkers sometimes set themselves and others alight."

There was some dreadful old 1980s Polish series on Polonia a few weeks ago, where someone was passing around a bottle of ether at some party lol

I imagine lighting farts would be much easier....but slightly more dangerous.....

and highly entertaining!

Found this . . .

Ether. Versatile stuff! ;)

0_o ... rather amazing ... the human body can be extremely strong.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2890321/