ANAESTHETICS
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 anaesthetics 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 anaesthetic is administered to produce temporary insensibility to
pain. At least something of anaesthetics 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 anaesthetic 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 anaesthetics, 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 anaesthetic in surgical
operations. Although the ancients had knowledge of anaesthetics of one
kind or other, the practice of anaesthesia 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 anaesthetic 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 anaesthetics 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 anaesthetics, 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 anaesthetic,
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 _anaesthetic_ and _anaesthesia_ 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.
[Illustration: 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
anaesthetic 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 anaesthetic 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 anaesthetic by the English
dentists and surgeons. A year later Sir J. Y. Simpson, of Edinburgh
discovered the anaesthetic properties of chloroform, which has since
that time been the preferred anaesthetic in Europe. Ether has continued
in general use in America.