Report (February 19, 1853) / [of I.P.] Walker.

  • United States. Congress. Senate. Select Committee on Ether Discovery 1852-1853)
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report (February 19, 1853) / [of I.P.] Walker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    I feel no interest or wish in this matter, except that the troth may be arrived at, and right and justice done; and that I may discharge faithfully the duty which the Senate has imposed on me by the reference, by endeavoring to obtain it, and present it. And it is but fair to say, in the outset, that, after a caref ul exami- nation of all the allegations and proofs to which 1 have had ac- cess, my mind is made up—my opinion formed on the question— and that I concur with the Board of Trustees of the Massachusetts Medical Hospital in the opinion expressed in their report of Jan- uary 26th, 1848, and with the two committees of the House of Representatives of 1849 and 1852, that Dr. W. T. G. Morton first discovered and brought into general use a safe, certain, and effi- cient anaesthetic agent, applicable generally to all dentrical, sur- gical, and obstetrical cases, and that he is entitled to whatever honor and reward are due to the discovery, and the free and ge- neral use of it, by the army and navy of the United States, by the country, and by the civilized world. Dr. Wells not the original conceiver of Ancesthesia. He was, however, by no means the first that formed a distinct conception of ancesthesia.^^ Nor was Dr. Horace Wells, or Dr. C. T. Jackson. If we trace the conception as far back through the lapse of ages as it is disclosed to us by history, we will find they were, each and all of them, among the last that entertained it. Nor was either of them the first that attained that end by means, good and satisfactory^^ for a time, at least, to themselves and a circle of select friends who felt pride or interest in finding the means satisfactory. None, however, as far as we know, prior to Dr. Morton, attained it by means deemed good and satisfactory by the medical profession generally throughout the civilized world, and published to the world the discovery of means such as that profession generally would venture to receive and bring into use. But the world, for more than two thousand years past, has teemed with the discovery and use of various agents, clearly and indubitably possessed of anaesthetic qualities, used in some instances—many of them frequently and for a long time— with considerable reputation and success. None of them, how- ever prior to the introduction of the use of the vapor of sulphuric ether by Dr. Morton, were able to make its way or hold its place among an intelligent and scientific modern medical profession. A historv of these anaesthetic agents, their qualities and use was not long since published by Dr. J. Y. Simpson ot Edinburg to whose brief but elegant essay the committee of the House ot Representatives who reported on this question in 1852 vvas large- ly indebted for the facts given in the historical introduction to their very able report—the following extract Irem wluch is fully to my present purpose: