Statements, supported by evidence, of Wm. T.G. Morton, M.D., on his claim to the discovery of the anaesthetic properties of ether : submitted to the honorable the Select Committee appointed by the Senate of the United States, 32d Congress, 2d session, January 21, 1853 / presented by Mr. Davis of Massachusetts, and referred to the Select Committee to whom had been referred the petition of sundry physicians of Boston and vicinity, in support of the claim of W.T.G. Morton, M.D., for the discovery of etherization.
- William T. G. Morton
- Date:
- 1853
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Statements, supported by evidence, of Wm. T.G. Morton, M.D., on his claim to the discovery of the anaesthetic properties of ether : submitted to the honorable the Select Committee appointed by the Senate of the United States, 32d Congress, 2d session, January 21, 1853 / presented by Mr. Davis of Massachusetts, and referred to the Select Committee to whom had been referred the petition of sundry physicians of Boston and vicinity, in support of the claim of W.T.G. Morton, M.D., for the discovery of etherization. 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.)
![to Dr. Jackson, told him what I had done, and asked him to give me a certificate that it was harmless in its effects. This he posi- tively refused to do. I then told him I should go to the principal See J. C.surgeons am] have the question thoroughly tried. 1 then called m^JOl on Dr- Warren, who promised me an early opportunity to try the 2d Inter.' experiment, and soon after I received the invitation inserted in J. Masou the appendix. Warren> «In the mean time, I made several additional experiments m my 6thPlSer office, with various success. I administered it to a boy, but it Dr.Hayden' produced no other effect than sickness, with vomiting, and the page 193. b wag laken j10me m a coach, and pronounced by a physician to be poisoned. His friends were excited, and threatened pro- ceedings against me. A notice of my successful experiments hav- ing, without mv knowledge, got into the papers, several persons called, wishingto have it administered. I gave it to a lady, but it produced no other effect than drowsiness, and when breathed through the apparatus named by Dr. Jackson, it produced suffo- cation. I was obliged to abandon this mode, and obtaining from Mr. Wightman a conical glass tube, I inserted a saturated sponge in the larger end, and she breathed through that. In this way she seemed to be in an unnatural state, but continued talking, and refused to have the tooth extracted. I made her some trifling of- fer, to which she assented, and I drew the tooth, without any indication of pain on her part, not a muscle moving. Her pulse was at 90, her face much flushed, and after coming to, she remained a longtime excessively drowsy. From this experiment, I became satisfied of what is now well proved, that consciousness will some- times remain after insensibility to pain is removed. I afterwards gave it to a Miss L., a lady of about twenty- five. The effect upon her was rather alarming. She sprung up from the chair, leaped into the air, screamed, and was held down with difficulty. When she came to, she was unconscious of what had passed, but was willing to have it administered again, which I did with perfect success, extracting two molar teeth. After this, See Gould, I tried several other experiments, some with more and some with page 265. \ess success, giving my principal attention to the perfecting of my modes of administering it. When the time drew near for the experiment at the hospital, I became exceedingly anxious, and gave all my time, day and night, hardly sleeping or eating, to the contriving of apparatus, and genera] investigation on the subject. I called on Dr. Gould, a physician who had paid much atten- tion to chemistry, and told him my anxieties and difficulties. He sympathized with me, gave me his attention, and we sat up nearly all night, making sketches of apparatus ; he first suggested tome an antidote in case of unfavorable effects, and the valvular system, instead of the one I then used. The operation was to be at 10 o'clock. J rose at daybreak, went to Mr. Chamberlain, an in-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21142695_0056.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
