Before the Commissioner of Patents, in the matter of extension of letters patent of the United States, granted to William T.G. Morton, on the 12th day of November, 1946, for "An improvement in surgical operations" : statement and account, pursuant to section eighteen of the Act of Congress, passed July 4, 1836.

  • Morton, W. T. G. (William Thomas Green), 1819-1868.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Before the Commissioner of Patents, in the matter of extension of letters patent of the United States, granted to William T.G. Morton, on the 12th day of November, 1946, for "An improvement in surgical operations" : statement and account, pursuant to section eighteen of the Act of Congress, passed July 4, 1836. 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.)

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    the local application of intense cold, or of severe compres- 7 sion, and even the introduction of certain gases into the kings of the patient, were all proposed or tried for the accomplishment of a practical insensibility to pain, but the imperfection and inadequacy of all these means soon led to their abandonment. So far as your said applicant is aware, for a long time prior to the introduction of the said discovery, hereinafter to be described, opium, as be- fore stated, was the only agent which the enlightened q practitioner employed, and the use of this was by no means frequent, and was never considered safe or ade- quate to the purpose. It was necessary to administer it in quantities sufficient to carry its effects far enough to produce actual stupefaction—without which no real in- sensibility to pain could be secured—and this could not be done without imminent risk to the life of the patient. Moreover, its action is uncertain both as to time and to degree; it possesses poisonous properties, and its use 9 gives rise to many inconveniences and troubles. These considerations combined to cause it to be employed as seldom as possible, while, even when it was used, the extreme danger attending it deterred from administer- ing sufficient to effect complete insensibility, and hence the patient felt a great degree of pain in spite of its use. Yet, notwithstanding the obvious imperfections of opium for this purpose, it was universally conceded to possess marked superiority over all the other above re- 10 ferred to pain-relieving agents, so exceedingly inadequate had the latter been demonstrated to be. In this unsatisfactory condition was this branch of science at the time of the making of the experiments which resulted in said discovery. The common use and the effects of ordinary sulphuric ether as applied locally and externally to diminish pain,