William T. G. Morton, M.D. -- Sulphuric ether. 1852 : Referred to a select committee : Dr. William H. Bissell, of Illinois, chairman : The select committee to whom was referred the memorial of Dr. William T.G. Morton, asking remuneration from Congress for the discovery of the anaesthetic or pain-subduing properties of sulphuric ether.

Date:
[1852]
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Credit: William T. G. Morton, M.D. -- Sulphuric ether. 1852 : Referred to a select committee : Dr. William H. Bissell, of Illinois, chairman : The select committee to whom was referred the memorial of Dr. William T.G. Morton, asking remuneration from Congress for the discovery of the anaesthetic or pain-subduing properties of sulphuric ether. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    Notwithstanding this long series of efforts to procure a, true nepenthe, the object still seemed unattainable to the wisest and boldest members of the surgical profession. Velpeau, than whom no higher authority can be quoted, said, in 1839, to avoid pain in surgical operations is a chi mera which it is not allowable to pursue at the present day. The cutting instrument, and pain, in operative medicine, are two words which never present themselves singly to the mind of the patient, and of which we must necessarily admit the association. Orfila, in his Toxicology, declares absolute insensibility to pain under surgical opera- tions by etherization, to be a discovery entirely new. Dr. J. C. Warren says, The discovery of a mode of preventing pain in surgical operations has been an object of strong desire among surgeons from an early period. In my surg?cal lectures I have almost annually alluded to it, and stated the means which I have usually adopted for the attainment of the ob- ject. I have also freely declared that, notwithstanding the use of very large doses of narcotic substances, this desideratum had never been saty isfactorily obtained. The successful use of any article of the materia medica for this purpose, would therefore be hailed by me as an allevia- tion of human suffering. Finally, Sir Benjamin Brodie, in a discourse at St. George's Hospital, at so late a date as October 1, 1846, alluding to mesmerism, said, There is no greater desideratum, either in medicine, or surgery, than to have the means of allaying or preventing bodily pain, not only in surgical operations, but in other cases also, but there is good reason to apprehend that it has not been reserved for the revival of animal magnetism under a new name, to accomplish that for which all physicians and surgeons have been looking in vain, from the days of Hippocrates down to the present time. Testimonials like these might be multiplied indefinitely, but the names already quoted are of those uni- versally recognized on both continents as the most illustrious cultivators of medical science! The desideratum of which Brodie despaired on the 1st of October, 1846, had been found, and its efficacy demonstrated within the twenty-four hours preceding the delivery of his lecture. And in a fetv days after, the tidings were borne with the full speed of steam across thd> Atlantic, and dispersed over Europe and Asia, which for two thousand years had been looking for it in vain. This sketch of the progress of human knowledge as to the inhalation of sulphuric ether and its effects, and as to attempts to superinduce anaesthesia by various agents in ancient and modern times, though by no means scientifically complete, is sufficiently so for the purpose for which your committee have introduced it, to show what was and what was not known upon the subject previously to the investigations and experiments of this memorialist. Your committee are satisfied, upon a full and careful examination of all the evidence before them, that until the 30th of September, 1846, it was not known that sulphuric ether might safely be inhaled in sufficient quantity to produce total insensibility to pain under the severest surgi- cal operations. The safety of this agent, its certainty, its efficiency, are now established beyond question, and acknowledged by the whole scien- tific world. This great discovery, by far the noblest contribution which medical science has made 1o humanity within the present century, and with which, looking through all ages, no other except that of .Tenner can take rank, sprung to light in the year 1846, in the State of Massachu- M> rts; and the memorialist, Dr. Wm. T. G. Morton, claims it as his own.