"Far off from these a slow and silent stream,
Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls her watery labyrinth."
Herodotus wrote that it was the practice of the Scythians to inhale the vapors of a certain kind of hemp to produce intoxication. The use of the mandrake plant as an anæsthetic is spoken of as far back as Pliny, the Roman historian. The sleep-producing effects of the mandragora or mandrake are alluded to by Shakespeare. He also frequently mentions in a general way draughts that act as anæsthetics, without making clear their specific natures. An old Chinese manuscript indicates that a physician of that country named Hoa-tho in the third century after Christ used a preparation of hemp as an anæsthetic in surgical operations. Although the ancients had knowledge of anæsthetics of one kind or other, the practice of anæsthesia never became general, and surgeons of the ancient world appear to have looked upon it with disfavor.
When in modern times Joseph Priestley, the English scientist (born in 1733, died 1804) gave great impetus to chemical research by his discoveries in that science, the nature of gases and vapors was more and more closely studied. The belief soon sprang up that many gases and vapors would ultimately become of great value in medicine and surgery. In 1800 Sir Humphry Davy experimented with nitrous oxide gas, called "laughing gas," and discovered its anæsthetic qualities. He suggested its use in surgery, but for practically half a century his suggestion passed unheeded. Other scientists experimented with greater or less success, seeking to find something that would alleviate physical pain; but to Dr. William T. G. Morton, an American, belongs the credit for the practical introduction of anæsthetics into modern surgery.
Dr. Morton was born in Charlton, Massachusetts, August 9, 1819. His ancestors were of Scotch extraction. He passed his early years in farm work. At the age of thirteen he entered an academy at Oxford, Massachusetts, where he remained only a few months, attending school thereafter at Northfield and Leicester. His father's financial condition caused him to leave school in 1836 and enter the employ of a publishing firm in Boston. Deciding to engage in the practice of dentistry, in 1840 he took a course in the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery. Two years afterward he began the practice of his profession in Boston. As dentistry at that time was in its beginnings as a distinct profession, Dr. Morton took up, in addition to it, the study of general medicine and surgery in the Harvard Medical School.
In the days prior to the use of anæsthetics, the operations of dental surgery were attended by much pain. Dr. Morton began seeking some means for alleviating it. In the course of his investigations he became acquainted with the effects of sulphuric ether as a local anæsthetic, and frequently used this drug in minor operations. On one occasion he applied it with unusual freedom in the treatment of a very sensitive tooth. Observing how completely the tissues were benumbed by the ether, he conceived the idea of bringing the entire system under its influence, thereby producing temporary insensibility in all the sensory nerves. The most serious problem with which he had to deal was the manner of applying the ether. Although the soporific tendencies of both ether and nitrous oxide gas were well known, it had not been proved that they could be inhaled in sufficiently large quantities, or, if so, that they would produce perfect insensibility. After a long series of experiments with various animals, Dr. Morton succeeded in fully establishing the narcotic power of ether.
On October 16, 1846, he made his first public demonstration of the new discovery in the operating room of the Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, when he painlessly removed a tumor from the jaw of a patient. This operation was wholly convincing to the medical profession, and created profound public interest. Dr. Morton was brought into immediate prominence. A meeting of the leading physicians of Boston was held to choose an appropriate name for the new process. A long list of words was presented, from which Dr. Morton selected the term letheon, related to the Lethe of Virgil and the classical writers. The words anæsthetic and anæsthesia were coined from the Greek by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, the American poet and physician, who was then living in Boston. The words proposed by Dr. Holmes have become the established terms of the subject, superseding the letheon of the discoverer.
Dr. William T. G. Morton
Dr. Morton secured a patent on his discovery, but derived little pecuniary profit from it. Although he permitted the free use of his anæsthetic in charitable institutions, his patent was frequently infringed. He vainly applied to Congress for compensation in 1846 and 1849. A bill to give him one hundred thousand dollars as a national testimonial of his contribution to the welfare of the race was introduced into Congress in 1852 and defeated. Measures in his behalf at sessions of Congress in 1853 and 1854 were likewise voted down. The only money that ever came to Dr. Morton for his discovery was a small prize from the French Academy of Sciences and the sum of one thousand dollars from the trustees of the Massachusetts General Hospital. The governments of Russia and of Norway and Sweden conferred upon him certain awards of honor in recognition of his great contribution to science.