Medicine Atlas

How Healing Is Practiced
Healers

William Morton

Dentist

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William Morton was the Boston dentist whose public demonstration of ether anesthesia at Massachusetts General Hospital on October 16, 1846, in the operating theater since called the Ether Dome, is the most widely credited founding moment of surgical anesthesia. Morton attempted to patent his ether preparation as Letheon, a move that damaged his medical reputation and fed a bitter, decades-long priority dispute with Crawford Long, Horace Wells and Charles Jackson over who deserved credit and compensation.

Facts
Birth Year
1819 1
Birth Date
1819-08-19 1
Death Year
1868 1
Death Date
1868-07-15 1
Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Site of Morton's public 16 October 1846 ether demonstration in the Ether Dome.

Discoveries

Anesthesia, Treatments

Most widely credited for the 1846 public demonstration that spread the practice.

Sources
1. The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity
Roy Porter, W. W. Norton and Company, 1997
Wikipedia: Massachusetts General Hospital
WikipediaAssociated With: Massachusetts General HospitalView the Source
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