Discovery by the late Dr. Horace Wells of the applicability of nitrous oxyd gas, sulphuric ether and other vapors in surgical operations : nearly two years before the patented discovery of Drs. Charles T. Jackson and W.T.G. Morton.

  • Wales, J.
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Discovery by the late Dr. Horace Wells of the applicability of nitrous oxyd gas, sulphuric ether and other vapors in surgical operations : nearly two years before the patented discovery of Drs. Charles T. Jackson and W.T.G. Morton. 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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    G subject of them, it will not be difficult to arrive at a just conclusion, as it is a mere question of fact to be settled by evidence, and there will be few competitors between whom it will be necessary to decide. Before the latter part of the year 1844, the fact was not known, that by the inhalation of a gaseous substance the body could be rendered insensible to pain under surgical operations with- out injury to the patient. No one, it is believed, claims the honor of a previous discovery in the ordi- nary sense of that term. No one before that time had ascertained the fact by actual experiment. We say this in full view of the claims set up by Dr. Charles T. Jackson, of the city of Boston, because it is not pretended by him, or by any one for him, that he ever performed a surgical operation, or caused one to be performed upon a subject under the influence of sulphuric ether, until that, (the merit of which he claims) per- formed by the hand of Dr. W. T. G. Morton, on the 30th day of September, 1846, nearly two years after the period of which we are now speaking. If we admit that as early as the win- ter of 1841-2, when he inhaled the vapor of sulphuric ether as a remedy for the effects of chlorine gas, he was * * led to believe, as he