William T.G. Morton
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William Thomas Green Morton (August 9, 1819 - July 15, 1868) was responsible for the first successful public demonstration of ether as an inhalation anesthetic. Many consider him to be the "inventor and revealer" of anesthesia. However, he was not the first person to use ether for surgical anesthesia. Crawford Williamson Long used ether several years earlier but did not publish or make known his usage until years after Morton's public demonstration. Morton's accomplishment was the key factor in the medical and scientific pursuit now referred to as anesthesiology and allowed the development of modern surgery.
Born in Charlton, Massachusetts, William Morton was originally a dentist. His parents were James Morton, a farmer, and Rebecca (Needham) Morton. He studied under Horace Wells in Hartford, Connecticut. The two later became partners. Morton graduated from Baltimore Dental College in 1842. The following year he married Elizabeth Whitman of Farmington, Connecticut, the niece of former Congressman Lemuel Whitman. Her parents objected to his profession and only agreed to the marriage after he promised to study medicine, so in the autumn of 1844, Morton enrolled at Harvard Medical School.
On September 30, 1846, Morton performed a painless tooth extraction after administering ether to a patient. This procedure led to an arrangement of a now-famous demonstration on October 16, 1846, at the Massachusetts General Hospital. At this demonstration Dr. John Collins Warren painlessly removed a tumor from the neck of a Mr. Edward Gilbert Abbott. Following the demonstration Morton tried to hide the identity of the substance Abbott had inhaled (ether). He referred to it as "Letheon". He had intentions to patent the substance and profit from its use. However, the “letheon” was quickly shown to be ether, and it was soon after being used in both the United States and Europe. Morton received a patent for ether in the US but never received any royalties. He spent his declining years in an attempt to persuade Congress to provide him compensation for his discovery, but this never arrived.
In the autumn of 1862 he joined the Army of the Potomac as a volunteer surgeon, and applied ether to more than two thousand wounded soldiers during the battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and the Wilderness.
Morton was in New York City in July 1868 when he went to Central Park to seek relief from a heat wave, but he collapsed there and died soon after. He is buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The 1944 Paramount Pictures film The Great Moment, written and directed by Preston Sturges, is based on the life of W. T. G. Morton.
Morton was ranked #37 on Michael H. Hart's list of the most influential figures in history.
