Chapter 10 AN STHETICS

If those inventions and discoveries out of which have come widespread safety, happiness, or prosperity to mankind are to be considered great, then Dr. Morton's discovery of an?sthetics and its application to surgery is entitled to a high place among the world's discoveries and inventions. The pain that has been destroyed, the lives that have been saved, the sorrow that has been averted, give their testimony to the value of this discovery to humanity.

An an?sthetic is administered to produce temporary insensibility to pain. At least something of an?sthetics was known to the ancients. Homer mentions nepenthe, a potion which was said to make persons forget their pains and sorrows. The word appears occasionally in literature. In "Evangeline" Longfellow refers to it in this line:

"Crown us with asphodel flowers, that are wet with the dews of nepenthe."

Virgil and other classical writers mention a mythical river Lethe which was supposed to surround Hades. Souls passing over to the happy fields of Elysium first drank from this river, whose waters caused them to forget their sorrows. Milton speaks of the mythical stream in the following passage from "Paradise Lost:"

"Far off from these a slow and silent stream,

Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls her watery labyrinth."

Herodotus wrote that it was the practice of the Scythians to inhale the vapors of a certain kind of hemp to produce intoxication. The use of the mandrake plant as an an?sthetic is spoken of as far back as Pliny, the Roman historian. The sleep-producing effects of the mandragora or mandrake are alluded to by Shakespeare. He also frequently mentions in a general way draughts that act as an?sthetics, without making clear their specific natures. An old Chinese manuscript indicates that a physician of that country named Hoa-tho in the third century after Christ used a preparation of hemp as an an?sthetic in surgical operations. Although the ancients had knowledge of an?sthetics of one kind or other, the practice of an?sthesia never became general, and surgeons of the ancient world appear to have looked upon it with disfavor.

When in modern times Joseph Priestley, the English scientist (born in 1733, died 1804) gave great impetus to chemical research by his discoveries in that science, the nature of gases and vapors was more and more closely studied. The belief soon sprang up that many gases and vapors would ultimately become of great value in medicine and surgery. In 1800 Sir Humphry Davy experimented with nitrous oxide gas, called "laughing gas," and discovered its an?sthetic qualities. He suggested its use in surgery, but for practically half a century his suggestion passed unheeded. Other scientists experimented with greater or less success, seeking to find something that would alleviate physical pain; but to Dr. William T. G. Morton, an American, belongs the credit for the practical introduction of an?sthetics into modern surgery.

Dr. Morton was born in Charlton, Massachusetts, August 9, 1819. His ancestors were of Scotch extraction. He passed his early years in farm work. At the age of thirteen he entered an academy at Oxford, Massachusetts, where he remained only a few months, attending school thereafter at Northfield and Leicester. His father's financial condition caused him to leave school in 1836 and enter the employ of a publishing firm in Boston. Deciding to engage in the practice of dentistry, in 1840 he took a course in the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery. Two years afterward he began the practice of his profession in Boston. As dentistry at that time was in its beginnings as a distinct profession, Dr. Morton took up, in addition to it, the study of general medicine and surgery in the Harvard Medical School.

In the days prior to the use of an?sthetics, the operations of dental surgery were attended by much pain. Dr. Morton began seeking some means for alleviating it. In the course of his investigations he became acquainted with the effects of sulphuric ether as a local an?sthetic, and frequently used this drug in minor operations. On one occasion he applied it with unusual freedom in the treatment of a very sensitive tooth. Observing how completely the tissues were benumbed by the ether, he conceived the idea of bringing the entire system under its influence, thereby producing temporary insensibility in all the sensory nerves. The most serious problem with which he had to deal was the manner of applying the ether. Although the soporific tendencies of both ether and nitrous oxide gas were well known, it had not been proved that they could be inhaled in sufficiently large quantities, or, if so, that they would produce perfect insensibility. After a long series of experiments with various animals, Dr. Morton succeeded in fully establishing the narcotic power of ether.

On October 16, 1846, he made his first public demonstration of the new discovery in the operating room of the Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, when he painlessly removed a tumor from the jaw of a patient. This operation was wholly convincing to the medical profession, and created profound public interest. Dr. Morton was brought into immediate prominence. A meeting of the leading physicians of Boston was held to choose an appropriate name for the new process. A long list of words was presented, from which Dr. Morton selected the term letheon, related to the Lethe of Virgil and the classical writers. The words an?sthetic and an?sthesia were coined from the Greek by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, the American poet and physician, who was then living in Boston. The words proposed by Dr. Holmes have become the established terms of the subject, superseding the letheon of the discoverer.

Dr. William T. G. Morton

Dr. Morton secured a patent on his discovery, but derived little pecuniary profit from it. Although he permitted the free use of his an?sthetic in charitable institutions, his patent was frequently infringed. He vainly applied to Congress for compensation in 1846 and 1849. A bill to give him one hundred thousand dollars as a national testimonial of his contribution to the welfare of the race was introduced into Congress in 1852 and defeated. Measures in his behalf at sessions of Congress in 1853 and 1854 were likewise voted down. The only money that ever came to Dr. Morton for his discovery was a small prize from the French Academy of Sciences and the sum of one thousand dollars from the trustees of the Massachusetts General Hospital. The governments of Russia and of Norway and Sweden conferred upon him certain awards of honor in recognition of his great contribution to science.

He died in New York City, July 15, 1868, and was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts, perhaps the most beautiful and illustrious of American burial places.

The monument of Dr. Morton in Mount Auburn bears this inscription: "William T. G. Morton, inventor and revealer of an?sthetic inhalation, by whom pain in surgery was averted and annulled; before whom, in all time, surgery was agony; since whom, science has control of pain." He is included among the fifty-three illustrious sons of Massachusetts whose names are inscribed upon the dome of the new Hall of Representatives in the State House at Boston; and is among the five hundred noted men whose names adorn the facade of the Boston Public Library.

The news of Morton's discovery reached England December 17, 1846. Within five days ether was in use as an an?sthetic by the English dentists and surgeons. A year later Sir J. Y. Simpson, of Edinburgh discovered the an?sthetic properties of chloroform, which has since that time been the preferred an?sthetic in Europe. Ether has continued in general use in America.