An address, delivered before the class of the Castleton Medical College : on the history of the original application of anaesthetic agents : May 17, 1848 / by E.R. Smilie.

  • Smilie, E. R.
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An address, delivered before the class of the Castleton Medical College : on the history of the original application of anaesthetic agents : May 17, 1848 / by E.R. Smilie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    tion which he was about losing from his counteracting course, and, armed with a bag of oxygen gas, some three months after the first successful experiment, he proceeded to the hospital upon the Quixotic errand of annihilating a giant in the form of asphyxia, which, report said, was about to obstruct its onward passage; but the ardor of his imagination was damped on his arrival, to learn that nothing of the kind existed, and that a knowledge of his interest in the discovery had not reached the hospital; notwithstanding he had, through the influence of a friend, received from W. T. G. Morton, in the form of a fee, for the accidental result obtained from a like suggestion, a bond securing him a per centage until it reached a stipulated amount, de- rived from the sale of rights, upon his relinquishing his right and title in the suggestion, and vesting it in Mr. Morton, as secured by a joint application for letter's patent, and corresponding grant. Upon finding Mr. Morton's claim so far in the ascendant that it had per- fectly eclipsed his own in a quarter so prominent, he was impelled by a frenzied desire of exclusive credit to cast off a rival so dangerous and throw himself upon what he considered his reserved rights, which j roved to be a modest claim for the full merit of the discovery ; and during the height of partizan and patent warfare, he destroyed the bond which was to secure him a portion of the proceeds arising from the patent; but it was not until after the exclusive right of controlling the agent was proved to be defective, and ether was used by the profession without the purchase of the privilege ; while, from the manner of its destruction, and language used, it was evidently premeditated, with the evident idea of enlisting professional sympathy in his behalf, from the impression that it would convey of pecuniary sacrifice, and thus aid in securing his desire through the channel of martyred self-inter- est. But this has, with other schemes, failed, as the peculiar character of the Massachusetts General Hospital report has given an almost irresistible strength to the favorable tide of Mr. Morton's claims, as in advocating his, they have not neglected to institute a comparison with regard to the nature of their respective operations, which appears very much like beating the bush for Mr. Morton while they make a selection from the game ; and the disinterested review of that report by his attorney, now so widely spread through the length and breadth of our country and Europe, would seem sufficient to give a permanent quietus to Dr. Jackson's struggles; but, hke the dying ember, he is now reviving all his latent material and energy for a final effort to
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