First Announcement of the Gilbert Abbott Operation

First Announcement of the Gilbert Abbott Operation, 1846
Bequest of Dr. Henry K. Beecher to the Library of Harvard Medical School, 1976

This brief account of the operation at Massachusetts General Hospital appeared in the Boston Evening Transcript for October 17, 1846, and is the first announcement of the operation.  Similar notices were published in the Boston Daily Journal and Boston Post.

That same day, October 17, George Hayward treated a female outpatient at the hospital for a fatty tumor on the shoulder; this was, in fact, the first complete and successful etherization.