ON OCTOBER 16, 1846, a dentist changed forever the course of medical history.
On that morning, Dr. William T. G. Morton, a dental surgeon, administered the first effective anesthetic to a patient in the surgical amphitheater of Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital.
It became “a most magnificent scientific revolution… one of the truly great moments in the long history of medicine,” says Dr. Howard Markel in a monthly column for PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) NewsHour.
“October 16 marks a milestone in the history of medicine. It is part of the narrative of dental care,” he says.
The patient was Glenn Abbott, a young man about to undergo removal of a vascular tumor on the left side of his neck.
Dr. John Warren performed the first painless surgery. “Gentlemen, this is no humbug!” he told medical students who were amazed at the procedure.
Dr. Morton called the anesthetic Letheon, after the Lethe River of mythology. The ancient Greeks believed that drinking the river’s waters deleted painful memories.
Letheon was actually sulfuric ether. And it led surgeons to conduct invasive but lifesaving procedures.
Before anesthesia, the standard painkillers used in surgery were opium and alcohol.
Physicians and chemists experimented with nitrous oxide, ether, carbon dioxide and other chemicals that proved to be ineffective.
Because tooth extractions were so painful, dentists also sought ways to ease the pain.
In 1844, Dr. Morton attended the lectures of chemistry professor Charles Jackson at Harvard Medical School.
Although financial difficulties forced Dr. Morton to discontinue his studies at Harvard, he remembered Dr. Jackson lecture on how the common sulfuric ether could make a person unconscious and even insensitive to external stimulus.
Two years later, in 1846, Dr. Morton exposed himself and his pets to fumes from sulfuric ether. Finding it safe, he started using it on dental patients.
He made a fortune on painless tooth extractions. He also realized that Letheon could be used for other surgical procedures.
It led to that demonstration for medical students at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Fame and fortune followed.
“The half-life of his celebrity turned out to be molto presto, followed by an interminable period of infamy and hardship during which he was lambasted for insisting on applying for an exclusive patent on Letheon,” writes Dr. Markel in the PBS NewsHour column.
“In the United States of the mid-19th century, it was considered unseemly, if not outright greedy, for members of the medical profession to profit from discoveries that universally benefited humankind, particularly from a patent for what turned out to be the easily acquired sulfuric ether.”
Others went forward to claim a slice of the fame and financial pie, including Dr. Jackson, his former Harvard professor.
It is now clear however that Dr. Morton was the first to device a glass flask that enabled patients to inhale ether. It came with a wooden mouthpiece that could regulate inhalation and prevent an overdose.
Dr. Morton died in 1868 broke and disillusioned.
Today he occupies an honored place in the pantheon of medical greats, Dr. Markel observes.
“Morton’s genius resided not only in his observations of the power of ether but also in his development of a crude but scientific method of regulating its inhalation, thus creating the field of anesthesiology.”
Dr. Markel is the Director of the Center for the History of Medicine and the George E. Wantz Distinguished Professor of the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan.
He is the author or editor of 10 books, including “Quarantine! East European Jewish Immigrants and the New York City Epidemics of 1892,” “When Germs Travel: Six Major Epidemics That Have Invaded America Since 1900 and the Fears They Have Unleashed” and “An Anatomy of Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halsted, and the Miracle Drug Cocaine.”
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Dr. Joseph D. Lim is the former Associate Dean of the UE College of Dentistry, former Dean of the College of Dentistry, National University, past president and honorary fellow of the Asian Oral Implant Academy, and honorary fellow of the Japan College of Oral Implantologists. Honorary Life Member of Thai Association of Dental Implantology. For questions on dental health, e-mail jdlim2008@gmail.com or text 0917-8591515./PN
