The First Surgery Under Ether Anaesthesia Was Called a Yankee Dodge
On 16 October 1846, dentist William Morton demonstrated ether anaesthesia at Massachusetts General Hospital. It was the moment surgery stopped being torture.
The Short Answer: Crawford Long first used ether for surgery in 1842 in rural Georgia, but never published his findings. William Morton's public demonstration at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1846 — known as Ether Day — is the event that changed surgery worldwide. The patient felt no pain, and the watching surgeons were stunned.
Before anaesthesia, surgery was a race against time and agony. Patients were held down by assistants, given alcohol or opium at best, and endured operations that lasted minutes because anything longer risked death from shock. Speed was the surgeon's greatest skill. Then came ether, and everything changed.
Crawford Long: The Quiet Pioneer
On 30 March 1842, Dr Crawford Long of Jefferson, Georgia, used diethyl ether to anaesthetise a patient named James Venable before removing a tumour from his neck. Venable felt nothing. Long went on to use ether in several more procedures, but — as a rural country doctor with a busy practice — he did not publish his results until 1849, years after Morton's famous demonstration.
Ether Day: 16 October 1846
William Morton, a Boston dentist, arranged a public demonstration at the surgical amphitheatre of Massachusetts General Hospital. Surgeon John Collins Warren was to remove a tumour from the jaw of a patient named Edward Gilbert Abbott. Morton administered ether using a specially designed glass inhaler.
Abbott fell unconscious. Warren operated. When it was done, Warren turned to the stunned audience and said: "Gentlemen, this is no humbug." The amphitheatre is now known as the Ether Dome and is preserved as a historic landmark.
News spread across the Atlantic within weeks. Robert Liston performed the first operation under ether in Europe on 21 December 1846 at University College Hospital in London. His verdict was characteristically blunt: "This Yankee dodge beats mesmerism hollow!"
The date of Morton's demonstration — 16 October — is now celebrated annually as World Anaesthesia Day.
Sources
- Fenster JM, Ether Day, HarperCollins, 2001.
- Long CW, An account of the first use of sulphuric ether by inhalation, Southern Medical and Surgical Journal, 1849.
Watch: Ether Anaesthesia in 60 Seconds
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