Memoranda relating to the discovery of surgical anesthesia : and Dr. William T. G. Morton's relation to this event, [Pamphlet 4].

  • William J. Morton
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Memoranda relating to the discovery of surgical anesthesia : and Dr. William T. G. Morton's relation to this event, [Pamphlet 4]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    > 11 against an army or navy surgeon for using it. This was done, and in due time, but after a change of administration, the record of judgment was presented to Howell Cobb, then head of the Treasury Department, who hesitated for a time, and at last refused, to carry out the order of the President. This memo¬ rial to the President was bacjied by the signatures of a majority of the members of each house of Congress.” The suit was sim¬ ply a friendly and technicaPaction, taken at the request of the President. Dr. Morton made no further efforts to follow up his claim against the government, subsequent to Senator Wilson/s report of 1863 and the failure to pass the bill in Con¬ gress. . A host of distinguished citizens, after careful examination of the facts', accorded their support to Dr. Morton in these various applications to Congress and on-other occasions. We will here merely mention the names pf Daniel Webster, Rufus Choate, Horace Mann, Charles Sumner, Marcus Morton, Louis Agassiz, R. H.' Dana, ‘ Edward Everett, J. M. Carlisle; Sam Houston, Samuel R. B, Morse, James Russell Lowell, Henry W. Longfellow, Alexander Stephens, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and among physicians practically all of the greatest in the country, including instances such as the Bigelows and the Warrens in Boston, and also James Jackson, John Ware, Henry I. Bowditch, George C. Shattuck, Charles G. Putnam, Francis Minot, J. J. White; in New York, AVillard Parker, Valentine Mott, John W. Francis, John Watson,-James R. Wood, Gurdon Buck, Ji M.‘ Camochan, W. H. Van Buren, T. Gaillard Thomas, G. L. Elliott, Thos. M. Markoe, Fordyce Barker^ John T. Met¬ calfe, Stephen Smith, Lewis A. Sayre, Edward Delafield, E. R. Peaselee, Horace Green, etc. <- The Semi-Centennial of .-^Anesthesia, Oct. 16, 1896.—The dis¬ covery of 'surgical anesthesia has- been celebrated on. many occasions but upon none more notably than upon that of the “ Commemoration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the first public demonstration of Surgical Anesthesia at the Massachusetts General Hospital Boston, Oct. 16, 1846.” On this occasion the Committee of Arrangements consisted, of: J. Collins Warren, M.D., LL.D., Chairman; James C. White, M.D., William L. Richardson, M.D., Henry H. A. Beach, M.D., Frederick C. Shattuck, M.D., William Sturgis Bigelow, M.D.