The invention of anæsthetic inhalation, or, "Discovery of anæsthesia." / by William J. Morton.

  • William J. Morton
Date:
1880
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The invention of anæsthetic inhalation, or, "Discovery of anæsthesia." / by William J. Morton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    At the rate of an average of one case a year of the kind he- kas described, how long would the world be in getting pos¬ session of Anaesthesia? And yet the enthusiastic Legislature of Georgia has declared that he is <£ a world’s benefactor,’* and on this ground has selected Dr. Long as one of its two- representative Georgians who are to be placed in the National Picture Gallery, at Washington. May we modestly ask what benefaction the world received from Dr. Long ? Dr. Long confesses that he was uncertain whether his tran¬ sient “ effects ” were due to the imagination, peculiarity of the patient, mesmerism, or ether. Dr. Long leaves us in no doubt as to why he made no publication. Not only had he not fully tested the anaesthetic- powers of ether, but he was by no means certain that his “ anaesthetic state ” was due to ether. lie writes: “ The question will no doubt occur, Why did I not publish the re¬ sults of my experiments in etherization soon after they were made ? I was anxious, before making any publication, to try etherization in a sufficient number of cases to fully satisfy my mind that Anaesthesia [sic] was produced by the ether, and was not the effect of the imagination, or owing to any peculiar in¬ susceptibility to pain in the persons experimented' on. At the time I was experimenting with ether, there were physicians ‘high in authority’ who were advocates of mesmerism, and recommended the induction of the mesmeric state as adequate to prevent pain in surgical operations.” Here we have the whole story. Dr. Long’s method in it¬ self could not have produced a valuable Anaesthesia. We know on his own admission and his patient’s that it did not do so, and Dr. Long himself now tells us that he did not know ex¬ actly what the V state ” was; that he was uncertain about the true nature of his results. He was waiting u to fully satisfy his mind that Anaesthesia was produced by the ether,” to test this. He was uncertain whether the effects obtained were due to imagination, to idiosyncrasy of the patient, to mesmeric in¬ fluence, or to ether. In fact, he never learned more than this until informed by the “numerous articles” published after 1840. No wonder he did not publish his five experiments to