The Massachusetts Medical Society formed its own library in 1782. Although the Boston Medical Library surpassed it in size, this record of the library's circulation from the mid-1820s indicates several of the Boston Medical Library…
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.
Dr. Walter Channing, Harvard's first professor of obstetrics and medical jurisprudence, was also Dean of the Medical School for over a quarter of a century. He promoted the use of ether anaesthesia in childbirth and was one of the founders and…