Today marks the 169th anniversary of the first public demonstration of an anesthetic being used for surgery. The seminal event took place on October 16, 1846 at the Massachusetts General Hospital in an operating theater now known as the Ether Dome. That was when a dentist by the name of William Morton used a new substance called ether to anesthetize patient Gilbert Abbott so that his surgeon, John Warren, could remove a tumor from the jaw. After the operation Mr. Abbott declared that he experienced absolutely no pain. Thus the age of anesthesia was born. The operation was nicely chronicled in a New England Journal of Medicine article published that year, voted the most important article ever published in that august journal. For more interesting historical facts about anesthesiology, head on over to the Anesthesia History Association's website.
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