Charles T. Jackson graduated at Harvard Medical College in 1829. after having led an already eventful career as geologist and mineralogist. He spent several years abroad, meeting many of the most distinguished men upon the Continent and displaying, in many ways, a great deal of scientific talent and mechanical ingenuity. In 1835 he opened, in Boston, the first laboratory for teaching analytical chemistry in the United States. A year later he was made State Geologist of Maine, and spent three years in this capacity. He also did a great deal of work upon the State geological surveys of Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and New York, while he was the first to call attention to the mineral resources of the southern shore of Lake Superior, where, in 1845. he opened up copper and iron mines. In 1846 and 1847 he became deeply interested in the subject and discovery of anaesthesia, and after the successful introduction of ether by Morton, in the Massachusetts General Hospital, set up the claim that it was he who had suggested it to Morton. In a pamphlet, published a little later, he states: "In the year 1837 I discovered that ether-vapor was superior to alcohol as a remedy for the strangling and toxic effects of chlorine-gas after inhalations for that purpose in my laboratory." He then relates how he administered the vapor to himself for the relief of the irritation produced by inhaling chlorine, and describes his sensations upon going to sleep and awakening. This claim in its entirety was a great surprise to both Morton and Wells, and led to a most unseemly discussion, which degenerated into a downright professional fight. After the death of Wells, Jackson and Morton both claimed that nitrous-oxide gas was not an anaesthetic, and that insensibility to pain could not be produced by it, in consequence of which the use of the gas was quite discontinued. It became, then, simply a question of priority as to the administration of ether for relief of pain during surgical operations. Wells being dead, this brought Long into the conflict. Jackson visited Europe again, and presented his claim before numerous societies in such a way as to be recognized abroad as the discoverer of anaesthesia. The relative merits of the whole controversy appear to have been pretty well summed up in a memorial sent to the Senate and House of Representatives by several hundred members of the Massachusetts Medical Society, which contains the following paragraph:—"The undersigned hereby testify to your honorable bodies that, in their opinion, William T. G. Morton first proved to the world that ether would produce insensibility to the pain of surgical operations, and that it could be used with safety. In their opinion, his fellow-men owe a debt to him for this knowledge."
In the Public Garden in Boston there has been erected a monument to the memory of the discoverer of ether, the donor being, at the time, unable to mention the individual to whom it should be dedicated. Upon one face is this inscription:—
"To commemorate the discovery that the inhaling of ether causes insensibility to pain, first proven to the world at the Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, October, 1846."
Upon another face are these words:—
"In gratitude for the relief of human suffering by the inhaling of ether a citizen of Boston has erected this monument, A.D. 1867.
The gift of Thomas Lee."
Morton's untimely death, largely due to disappointment and, as he thought, to persecution, has been already mentioned. In 1873 Jackson's mind became deranged, and he died in an asylum in 1880.
Sir James Paget has summed up the relative claims of our four contestants in an article entitled "Escape from Pain," published in the Nineteenth Century for December, 1879. He says: "While Long waited and Wells turned back and Jackson was thinking, and those to whom they had talked were neither acting nor thinking, Morton, the practical man, went to work and worked resolutely. He gave ether successfully in severe surgical operations, he loudly proclaimed his deeds, and he compelled mankind to hear him." As Dr. Morton's son, Dr. W. J. Morton, of New York, says, when writing of his father's claim: "Men used steam to propel boats before Fulton, electricity to convey messages before Morse, vaccine-virus to avert small-pox before Jenner, and ether to annul pain before Morton."
So much for ether. I have already stated that chloroform was discovered by Guthrie in 1831. But, though discovered in this country, it was first introduced as an anæsthetic agent in Scotland, by Simpson, who, in 1847, at the age of thirty-six, began to direct his attention to the discovery of some means of alleviating pain during childbirth, having a very large obstetric practice. Simpson was not satisfied with sulphuric ether, because of its strong and disagreeable odor, and inquired of his friend Waldie, Master of Apothecaries' Hall, of Liverpool, if he knew of nothing likely to be a satisfactory substitute. Waldie, acquainted with the chemical composition of chloric ether, suggested that chloroform be prepared from it and used. Simpson experimented with this in 1847, and established its anaesthetic properties, which he made known through a paper read on November 10th of the same year. It was arranged that upon the 13th of the month a public test should be made at the Royal Infirmary; but Simpson, who was to administer the chloroform, was unavoidably detained. Accordingly the operation was performed as of yore, without an anaesthetic, and during its performance the patient died upon the table. Had this death taken place during the employment of chloroform, it would have been the death-blow of that substance as an anaesthetic. The first public trial took place two days later, the test proving a great success. Simpson goes down in history, then, not as the discoverer of anaesthesia, but as the one who introduced chloroform for anaesthetic purposes. He died in 1870, and upon his bust in Westminster Abbey is this inscription:—
"To whose genius and benevolence the world owes the blessings