James Robinson's Ether Inhaler
Ether.
Anesthesia.
Robinson, James, 1813-1862.
After the Abbott operation, Jacob Bigelow sent news of the discovery to Francis Boott (1792-1863), who was living in England. Boott communicated this to James Robinson, a surgeon-dentist, who then performed a painless tooth extraction on December 19, 1846, and was the first use of ether anesthesia in England. Robinson published this pamphlet of experiments, with a diagram and description of the inhaling apparatus, along with accounts of surgical operations in early 1847.
Robinson, James, 1813-1862.
A Treatise on the Inhalation of the Vapour of Ether,
for the Prevention of Pain in Surgical Operations
London : Webster and Co.
image
English.
image
RD86.E8R56
Photographs of Early Ether Anesthesia 0perations at Massachusetts General Hospital
Ether.
Anesthesia.
Massachusetts General Hospital.
Hawes, Josiah Johnson, 1808-1901.
Southworth, Albert Sands, 1811-1894.
Daguerrotypes.
Reproductions of daguerreotypes of early operations employing ether anesthesia at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Hawes, Josiah Johnson, 1808-1901.
Southworth, Albert Sands, 1811-1894.
image
still image
0004726-0004729
"Wm. T. G. Morton, M.D. surgeon dentist, Boston, administering ether preparatory to performing the operation by which he first discovered and demonstrated the marvellous anaesthetic powers of ether in surgery"
Ether
Anesthesia
Morton, W. T. G. (William Thomas Green), 1819-1868.
Engraving "Wm. T. G. Morton, M.D. surgeon dentist, Boston, administering ether preparatory to performing the operation by which he first discovered and demonstrated the marvellous anaesthetic powers of ether in surgery."
Hall, George R., 1818-
Trials of a public benefactor, as illustrated in the discovery of etherization / By Nathan P. Rice, M.D.
New York, Published by Pudney & Russell, MDCCCLIX [c1858]
image
image
C-CL02, Ser. 215. Box 002, Fol. 01.
Morton-type ether inhaler with sponge and presentation inscription from T. G. Morton to J. Mason Warren.
Ether
Anesthesia
Morton, W. T. G. (William Thomas Green), 1819-1868.
Photograph of Morton-type ether inhaler with sponge and presentation inscription from T. G. Morton to J. Mason Warren.
Photographer unknown.
image
English.
image
C-CL02, Ser. 251, Box M027, f. 011.
Newspaper announcement of the first operation under ether anesthesia.
Massachusetts General Hospital.
Anesthesia.
Abbott, Gilbert, 1825-1855.
Ether.
First announcement of the surgical operation using ether anesthesia at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Tenney, Albert?
Boston, Mass. : Dutton & Wentworth
text
English.
text
0004953
Photograph of W. T. G. Morton.
Morton, W. T. G. (William Thomas Green), 1819-1868.
Photograph of W. T. G. Morton.
Bushby & Hart, 71 Broad Street, Lynn, Mass.
image
image
0004952
Report of the Board of Trustees of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Presented to the Corporation, at their Annual Meeting, January 26, 1848.
Ether.
Anesthesia.
Massachusetts General Hospital.
Morton, W. T. G. (William Thomas Green), 1819-1868.
Jackson, Charles T. (Charles Thomas), 1805-1880.
Conclusions of a committee inquiring into the claims of W. T. G. Morton and Charles T. Jackson over the credit for the discovery of ether anesthesia.
Massachusetts General Hospital. Board of Trustees.
Boston : Printed by John Wilson
text
English.
text
R11.M39 (1848), p. 43-44.
Insensibility during Surgical Operations Produced by Inhalation
Ether.
Anesthesia.
Massachusetts General Hospital.
Bigelow, Henry Jacob, 1818-1890.
Article from the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal describing first surgical operations using ether anesthesia.
Bigelow, Henry Jacob, 1818-1890.
text
English.
text
1.Mvp.5
List of Patients Who Have Inhaled Ether or Chloroform for Surgical Operations in the Massachusetts General Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital.
Ether.
Chloroform.
Bigelow, Henry Jacob, 1818-1890.
List of patients who have inhaled ether or chloroform for surgical operations in the Massachusetts General Hospital up to April 1, 1848, furnished by H. J. Bigelow, M.D.
Bigelow, Henry Jacob, 1818-1890.
United States. Congress. House. Select committee to whom was referred the memorial of Dr. William T.G. Morton. William T. G. Morton, sulphuric ether. Report ... Feb. 23, 1849. [Washington, 1849]
text
English.
text
22.C.57
Invitation to the Semi-Centennial of Anaesthesia Celebration
Massachusetts General Hospital.
Anesthesia--History.
Invitation to the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the first public demonstration of surgical anesthesia, signed by William Sturgis Bigelow and J. Collins Warren.
Massachusetts General Hospital.
Merrymount Press.
text
English.
text
Crawford W. Long, M.D. Discoverer of anaesthesia demonstrated on James M. Venables by the use of sulphuric ether at Jefferson, Jackson Co., Georgia, March 30th, 1842
Long, Crawford Williamson, 1815-1878.
Ether.
Anesthesia.
An engraving of Crawford W. Long.
O'Brien, R.
image
English.
still image
Portrait Collection, M-CL02, box 99, f. 16.
Unsuccessful cases of anesthesia by ether inhalation
Ether.
Anesthesia.
Surgeon George Hayward performed the second operation employing ether at Massachusetts General Hospital on October 17, 1847, and then the first capital operation—the successful amputation of a leg—later that year. The following year, on April 12th, he reported his experiences to the Boston Society for Medical Improvement and then published this account in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal on April 21st.
Hayward here outlines some of the unsuccessful cases of inhalation from the hospital and also his private practice, as more became known about the use of ether and the means of administering it.
Hayward, George, 1791-1863.
Some account of the first use of sulphuric ether by inhalation in surgical practice. [Boston, 1847].
Publisher not identified.
text
English.
text
1.Mh.1847.H
First Case in Which Sulphuric Ether Was Exhibited by Inhalation in Labor
Ether.
Anesthesia in obtetrics.
Keep, Nathan, 1800-1875.
Longfellow, Fanny Appleton, 1817-1861.
Channing, Walter, 1786-1876.
The passage displayed reproduces a letter from Nathan Cooley Keep (1800-1875), recounting the first use of ether anesthesia in labor; the patient was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s wife, Fanny, who gave birth to a daughter on April 7, 1847.
Keep, Nathan, 1800-1875.
source_collectionname
Channing, Walter, 1786-1876. A treatise on etherization in childbirth. Illustrated by five hundred and eighty-one cases. By Walter Channing ...
Boston, W.D. Ticknor and Company
1848
text
English.
text
RG732.C36, c. 4, p. 397.
Charles T. Jackson Communicates the Ether Discovery
Ether.
Anesthesia.
Jackson issued this publication “to interest both the Surgeon and the Solider, and with the intention of aiding the one and of informing the other” at the outbreak of the Civil War. The Manual provides illustrations and examples of cases from French medical literature, but also supports Jackson’s claim to the discovery of anesthesia:
"Those most competent to judge in this case have long since decided that I discovered the principle of anaesthesia, verified it by experiments on my own person, and by my prescription, also, made the application of it to surgery, in the highest sense of that term."
The passage displayed here lists Jackson’s history with anesthesia starting with the winter of 1841-1842.
Jackson, Charles T. (Charles Thomas), 1805-1880.
A Manual of Etherization : Containing Directions for the Employment of Ether,
Chloroform, and Other Anaesthetic Agents by Inhalation, in Surgical Operations …
Boston : Published for the Author by J. B. Mansfield
text
English.
text
1.Fn.17, p. 22-23.
Photographs from "The Advent of Anesthesia" Film
Ether
Anesthesia
Abbott, Gilbert, 1825-1855.
Morton, W. T. G. (William Thomas Green), 1819-1868.
Massachusetts General Hospital.
In 1933, the Mallinckrodt Chemical Company produced a short silent file, “The Advent of Anesthesia”, depicting the experiments of W. T. G. Morton with ether anesthesia and recreating the first public demonstration of the operation on Gilbert Abbott in 1846. The film uses the Ether Dome and other facilities at Massachusetts General Hospital and the cast includes hospital staff and personnel, including John Peabody Monks as Morton, Somers Hayes Sturgis as Gilbert Abbott, and Edward D. Churchill as surgeon John Collins Warren. Edward D. Churchill preserved a file of still photographs of the actors. Shown here are Drs. Monks, holding a replica of the first inhaler, Sturgis, with a tumor on the side of his neck, and the administration of ether with the inhaler.
Mallinckrodt Chemical Company.
Churchill, Edward D. (Edward Delos), 1895-1972. Papers, 1840-1973. [H MS c62]
image
still image
H MS c62, box 14, f. 27.
Self-Portrait in the Form of a Silhouette.
Wells, Horace, 1815-1848.
1 framed silhouette of Horace Wells.
Wells, Horace, 1815-1848.
image
image
ff B MS b269.1.
Tintype of a Daguerreotype of Horace Wells.
Wells, Horace, 1815-1848.
Photographer unknown.
Uncataloged.
image
still image
Uncataloged.
Photograph of Charles T. Jackson.
Jackson, Charles T. (Charles Thomas), 1805-1880.
Photograph of Charles T. Jackson.
F. L. Lay's Photographic Atelier, 31 Winter St., Boston.
Boston Society for Medical Improvement (Mass.). Album of members and other distinguished physicians, 1872.
image
still image
f 1.Eb.3, no. 30.
Photograph of W. T. G. Morton.
Morton, W. T. G. (William Thomas Green), 1819-1868.
Photograph of W. T. G. Morton.
Silsbee, Case & Co Photographic Artists, 299 1/2 Washington Street, Boston.
Portrait Collection.
image
still image
M-CL02, Ser. 00247, box 116, f. 9.
Responses to the Interrogatories of R. H. Dana
Ether
Anesthesia
Townsend, Solomon David, 1793-1869.
At the request of William T. G. Morton, “to be preserved in perpetual remembrance of the thing,” sixteen physicians--John Collins Warren and Henry Jacob Bigelow among them--with knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the ether discovery and its first surgical uses submitted depositions to the Suffolk County Justices of the Peace in 1852 and 1853.
In the deposition displayed here, S. D. Townsend, who was present at the initial demonstration on October 16, describes the first capital operation--a leg amputation--performed on November 24 and discusses the substitution of a sponge for the inhaler.
Townsend, Solomon David, 1793-1869.
text
English.
text
Acc. 2880
Description of the Gilbert Abbott Operation at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Ether.
Anesthesia.
Warren, John Collins, 1778-1856.
Massachusetts General Hospital.
Abbott, Gilbert, 1825-1855.
Description of the first public demonstration of a surgical operation employing sulphuric ether as an anesthetic, the Morton inhaler, and the imperfect. etherization.
Warren, John Collins, 1778-1856.
Etherization; with surgical remarks / by John C. Warren.
Boston : William D. Ticknor & Co.
text
English.
text
1.Mw.1848.W.
Subscription list for the Morton Testimonial Association
Morton, W. T. G. (William Thomas Green), 1819-1868.
Ether.
Anesthesia.
Morton Testimonial Association.
Subscription list to raise funds for support of W. T. G. Morton and his family.
Morton Testimonial Association. Trustees.
Proceedings on behalf of the Morton testimonial.
Boston : J. H. Eastburn's Press.
text
English.
text
1.Fn.27.
A. L. Peirson letter to W. T. G. Morton, 1847
Ether.
Anesthesia.
Peirson, A. L. (Abel Lawrence), 1794-1853.
Morton, W. T. G. (William Thomas Green), 1819-1868.
Amputation.
Copy of a letter addressed to Morton, describing Peirson's successful surgical amputations employing ether anesthesia.
Peirson, A. L. (Abel Lawrence), 1794-1853.
Peirson, A. L. (Abel Lawrence), 1794-1853. Letterbook, 1829-1852. [B MS b54.5]
Peirson, A. L. (Abel Lawrence), 1794-1853. LinkPapers of Abel Lawrence Peirson, 1812-1905 (inclusive), 1812-1866 (bulk). [B MS c24]
text
English.
text
B MS b54.5, f. 86-87.
George Hayward
Hayward, George, 1791-1863.
Photographs
Dr. George Hayward was Harvard's first professor of the principles of surgery and clinical surgery. In 1846, he performed the second public surgical operation utilizing ether anesthesia, and then the first major amputation.
<p>In addition to being a Trustee, Dr. Hayward held the offices of Clerk and Treasurer of the Boston Medical Library and was its last Librarian.</p>
F. L. Lay's Photographic Atelier, 31 Winter St., Boston.
image
still image
C-CL02, Ser. 248, box 67, f. 26.