Morton's discovery of an?sthetics and its application to surgery is entitled to a high place among the world's discoveries and inventions. The pain tha

s known to the ancients. Homer mentions nepenthe, a potion which was said to make persons forget their pains a

flowers, that are wet wi

ouls passing over to the happy fields of Elysium first drank from this river, whose waters caused them to

hese a slow and

oblivion, rolls he

a or mandrake are alluded to by Shakespeare. He also frequently mentions in a general way draughts that act as an?sthetics, without making clear their specific natures. An old Chinese manuscript indicates that a physician of that country named Hoa-tho in the third century afte

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 an?sthetic qualities. He suggested its use in surgery, but for practically half a century his sugges

l 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 Den

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

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 c

iam T. G

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 discov

Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts, perhaps th

led; 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 insc

he English dentists and surgeons. A year later Sir J. Y. Simpson, of Edinburgh discovered the an?sthetic properties of ch