Historical memoranda relative to the discovery of etherization, and to the connection with it of the late Dr. William T. G. Morton / prepared by the Committee of citizens of Boston chosen to raise a Morton Testimonial Fund.

Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Historical memoranda relative to the discovery of etherization, and to the connection with it of the late Dr. William T. G. Morton / prepared by the Committee of citizens of Boston chosen to raise a Morton Testimonial Fund. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    about to undergo operations,— Oct. 16 and 17, 1846. On those occasions, and at all other times during the subse- quent few weeks in which the discovery was forcing itself upon the knowledge of the world, he was the only person known in connection with this new agent. The new term, “anaesthesia,” then first used in medicine, was applied to the result of his experiments. The medical profession, as a body, would have scouted the idea that it was possible, without danger to life, to cause a person to inhale ether to the extent advised by Dr. Mor- ton. Death would have been thought inevitable. Even Dr. C. T. Jackson, a rival claimant, said that Morton would “ kill somebody by it,” * and appeared at the hospital two months after the first operations, “with a bag containing oxygen-gas under his arm,” telling Dr. Townsend, the operat- ing surgeon, that “ they should always have oxygen-gas pre- pared and ready in case of accident in the employment of ether.” f It should be remembered, however, that Dr. Jack- son was not familiar with surgical operations under ether, and might well feel that there was cause for anxiety. After the complete triumph of Dr. Morton was acknowledged, Dr. Jackson declared, that, five years before, he himself had “ in- ferred ” that such success would be the result (very much in the same manner as when, in 1837, he claimed to have invented the magnetic telegraph and to have communicated his invention to Prof. Morse in 1832). | Mere “ inferences,” * See Caleb Eddy’s statement, p. 296, Cong. Rep., 32d Cong., 2d Sess., Jan. 21, 1853. t See Dr. Townsend’s statement, p. 358, Cong. Rep., 32d Cong., 2d Sess., Jan. 21, 1853. t Morse’s Patent. Full Exposure of Dr. Charles T. Jackson’s Pretensions to the Inven- tion of the American Electro-Magnetic Telegraph. By Amos Kendall; with Preface by Samuel F. B. Morse.