William T.G. Morton, Who Demonstrated the Use of Anesthesia For Surgery, Believes Congress Is on the Verge of Rewarding Him For His Discovery

Morton, one of the greatest benefactors of humankind, began dental practice in 1844. In January 1845 he was present at Massachusetts General Hospital when a colleague attempted unsuccessfully to demonstrate the pain-killing properties of nitrous oxide gas. Morton was determined to find a more reliable pain-killing chemical, and set about doing so. He consulted a former teacher, with whom he had previously done work on pain relief. They discussed the use of ether, and Morton decided to use it, successfully painlessly extracting a tooth from a patient on ether on September 30, 1846. The event made the newspapers, and upon reading a favorable account of this extraction, Boston surgeon Henry J. Bigelow arranged for a now-famous public demonstration of ether on October 16, 1846, at the operating theater of the Massachusetts General Hospital. At this demonstration, before an astonished group of surgeons, Dr. John C. Warren painlessly removed a tumor from the neck of one Edward Abbott. News of this use of ether spread rapidly around the world.

A month later Morton received a patent for his ether inhalant, but his attempts to utilize the patent were frustrated by the claims of others that they were the actual discoverers of the invention. In December 1846, Morton applied to Congress to acknowledge his invention and provide him with compensation in the form of a ”national recompense” of $100,000. But perhaps because of the controversy, and the simple unwillingness of Congress to spend the money, Morton’s application proved fruitless. He made similar applications in 1849, 1851, which failed. In 1853 he tried again, in a planned and concerted attempt for which he had high hopes.

For that last application, to rebut the challenges of other claimants, Morton hired attorney Horace Cornwall to do research, take depositions, and file papers. In addition, in December 1852 126 Massachusetts physicians, and the Massachusetts General Hospital, represented to the U.S. Senate that Morton had “first proved that ether would produce insensitivity to the pain of surgical operations”. Morton was often in Washington to prosecute his claim, and found the reception he received to his liking. In the meantime, he ran up huge bills, including legal fees owed to Cornwall and others.

In April 1854 Morton was confident Congress would award him the money he sought. Autograph letter signed, Washington, April 17, 1854, to Horace Cornwall, saying he cannot afford to pay his legal bills at present, but hopes to soon. “It pains me to not be able to do more for you at this time but shall hope to send you more next month. Try and get along with this now and I will do more for you as soon as possible. P.S. I am expecting my bill up any day in the Senate. There is only 1/2 dozen bills on private calendar before it. I have a large vote in favor of it.”

But though Morton proved right, his preparations were ultimately incomplete. On April 19, 1854, two days after writing this letter, and as he expected, Morton’s bill “to recompense the discoverer of practical anaesthesia” passed the Senate. But the House took up the bill unexpectedly quickly on April 21, and he had not yet courted that body. Citing “multiplicity of claimants”, the House laid Morton’s bill on the table, which dismissed it altogether. Morton’s final hopes were dashed; there would be no reconsideration.

In the spring of 1857, Amos Lawrence and other wealthy and influential citizens of the Boston area, together with medical professionals, developed a plan to raise $100,000 as a national testimonial to Morton, receiving contributions from both public and private citizens. But the Civil War Morton intervened, which prevented the goal from being accomplished. Morton performed public service again in the autumn of 1862 when he joined the Army of the Potomac as a volunteer surgeon, and applied ether to more than 2,000 wounded soldiers after the great battles fought by that army. He died of a stroke in 1868.

In 1871, a committee of those involved in raising the national testimonial published The Historical Memoranda Relative to the Discovery of Etherization to establish Morton as the inventor and revealer of anesthetic inhalation, praising Morton for the “fearful moral and legal responsibility he assumed in pursuit of this discovery.”

Letters of Morton in his hand are true rarities. A search of public sale records going back 40 years turns up just three, only one of which is later than 1983, and none since then that relate to anesthesia.