Dr. Charles T. Jackson's statement of the history of his discovery of the means of preventing all sensations of pain in surgical operations by administration of vapor of pure sulphuric ether mixed with air, by pulmonary inhalation.
- Charles Thomas Jackson
- Date:
- [1851?]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Dr. Charles T. Jackson's statement of the history of his discovery of the means of preventing all sensations of pain in surgical operations by administration of vapor of pure sulphuric ether mixed with air, by pulmonary inhalation. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
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![observe that the nalure of the agent used is carefully concealed, and lienee il is a mere <ptack adcertist nicnt. Mr. \. 1. How cHuh \vd*,a>i(iul/i<»-izr(i'and against (he protest of some of the trustees o( ihe .Massaehusetts General Hospital, caused to be print- ed an ex parte statement in favor of the claims of the quack dentist whom I allowed to use my method of preventing pain in surgical operations. He is a man of no science, of no knowledge of physiology or of medicine, —a mere conveyancer of real estate—a man wholly incapable of an// scicn/i/ic examination of this (/neslion, and a man of most bitter prejudices against me, personally, exceeding in dogged obstinacy an// man 1 ever knew or have ever heard of. Convicted of error, he still insists that he is right, and he has been known to set up his opinion against the judges of our Supreme Court, and was only silenced by threats of prosecution for slander. [Statement of Lucius Manlius Sargent, Esq., of Boston.] Such have been my opponents in this country. J name them, not because I have any fears of your attaching any importance to their opinion, or that any scientific man would think their views worthy of consideration, but for the purpose of informing you of ihe fact that my claims to this discovery have been disputed only by incompetent persons whose opinions you will, of course, throw aside as worthless. It has often been asked, how I happened to commit the execution of my early verification experiments to an ignorant, and wholly unedu- cated person, like the quack doctor, Morton. This I will now explain. I was not aware of I lie infamous character of that man when he came to solicit the privilege of entering his name at my office as a medical stu- dent, and 1 allowed him to call himself my pupil, and I advised him to attend the lectures at ihe Medical College, of this city, and endeavored to instruct him in the first principles of human anatomy. I soon found that he was too ignorant to be capable of learning the medical profession, though I thought in the.course of time he might learn enough to be- come a surgeon dentist. He was a well dressed and plausible man, and although I knew him 1o be an ignoramus in all matters of science, I thought he could perform the very simple operations lhat 1 was about to commit to him, namely, the administration of ether to some of ihe patients whose teeth he was about to extract. His office, I knew, v frequented by the lower and credulous class of people, such as were attracted by his quack advertisements, with which he filled our daily newspapers. 1 had for years ceased to practice medicine and surgery, and had no opportunity of operating in any case; my business having for some years become that of a chemist and geologist. I therefore on the 30th day of September, 1846, induced this dentist, Morton, \o'lest my disrovery on a person whose teeth he was about to extract, commit- ting it to him in ihe presence of two of my pupils, Mr. George Orville Barnes, and Mr. James Mclntyre, whose sworn depositions are for- warded to you with the other testimony. Mr. Morton, at the time I communicated to him my discovery, was wholly ignorant of the nature of ether, as is fully proved by ihe testimony aboVe mentioned. He did not come to my office to ask any questions about ether, and did not mention it until after I had communicated 1o him my discovery He came only for the purpose of borrowing an India-rubber cloth gas-bag which he intended to fill with air and pretend it was protoxide of ni](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21132203_0006.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
