We wrote the biography of dentist William Thomas Green Morton, one of the first practitioners of general anesthesia by inhaling ether during surgery and making his name known.
His full name is William Thomas Green Morton, he was born on August 9, 1819, in Charlton, Massachusetts. He was born to his father, James Morton, a miner, and his mother, Rebecca Needham Morton. Finding work as a clerk, printer, and salesman in Boston, William entered the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery in 1840. The following year, he made a name for himself with the development of a new process for soldering dentures to gold plates.
In 1842, Morton, who started dentistry, and Horace Wells, the dentist with whom he shared a partnership, dropped out of college after graduating to work in Hartford. However, it did not last long and ended in 1843. That same year, Morton married Elizabeth Whitman of Connecticut, Lemuel Whitman's niece. Whitman's family objected to Morton's profession and was only able to agree to the marriage after promising to study medicine. The couple has a son named William J. Morton, and their son became a well-known doctor and authority in the field of electrotherapeutics.
Entering Harvard Medical School in the fall of 1844, Morton attended the chemistry classes of chemist Charles T. Jackson. Thanks to this teacher, he became acquainted with the anesthetic properties of ether and began to experiment first on animals and then on himself. Morton later dropped out of medical school before graduating.
On September 30, 1846, Morton performed a painless tooth extraction after giving ether to a patient. Despite the fact that the operation was followed and the news was published in the newspapers, the event did not attract wide attention. After reading a positive newspaper report about this event, Boston surgeon Henry Jacob Bigelow arranged a famous ether demonstration at the Massachusetts General Hospital operating theater on October 16, 1846, and the operation on Edward Gilbert Abbott was painlessly performed. The news that ether was used in this way began to spread rapidly all over the world.
The first recorded use of ether outside of the US was in England by dentist James Robinson during a tooth extraction at the home of Francis Boote, the doctor who had heard of Morton and Bigelow's operations. After the operation, Morton tried to disguise the identity of the substance Abbott inhaled by calling it "Letheon", but it proved to be ether. A month later, in 1846, Morton and his teacher Jackson received a joint patent, as it was widely known to be ether.
After the medical world denounced patent as unfair and illiberal in such a humane and scientific profession, Morton assured his colleagues that he would not restrict the use of ether among hospitals and charities. He further stated that the purpose of obtaining the patent was to ensure the competent management of ether and to prevent its misuse or use, and to recoup expenses.
Morton's pursuit of reputation and profit for the stewardship of the ether has been complicated by the sly and deceptive tactics he employed during his development, as well as by the competing claims of other doctors. Morton's desire to obtain patents overseas also refuted thoughts of Morton's philanthropic intent. As a result, no effort was made to enforce the patent, and ether soon came into general use.
In December 1846, Morton applied to Congress for a "national award," but this was complicated by claims that others had discovered the ether, and Morton's application was fruitless. Morton, who made similar applications in 1849, 1851 and 1853, failed in all of them. Around this time, he resulted in an honorary degree from Washington Medical University in Baltimore.
The anesthesia, intensive care, and pain medicine department at Massachusetts General Hospital had its roots in the public operation of the medical ether on October 16, 1846. Joining the Army of the Potomac as a volunteer surgeon in the fall of 1862, Morton once again took up public work. He also tried to treat more than two thousand wounded soldiers by applying ether during the battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Wilderness.
In July 1868, Morton, who was in New York with his wife, suddenly asked the car to stop and drove to the lake in Central Park "to cool off." This peculiar behavior was due to a massive stroke that proved fatal after a while. Morton was taken to the nearby teaching hospital, St. Luke's, but died despite the interventions. Morton's body was buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Massachusetts.
Morton, who thought and wanted to find the use of ether as an anesthetic and get the full pantent of it, would make a financial gain, worked on just that all his life. However, due to the claims, criticisms and complications, he continued his life in poor financial condition and died that way.
In 1871, a formed committee identified Morton as the inventor and publicist of anesthetic inhalation. Morton's life and work were featured in the 1944 Paramount Pictures biopic "The Great Moment," written and directed by Preston Sturges. Morton's first successful public display of an ether was a big historic and widely publicized event. So much so that many see Morton as the "inventor and revealer" of anesthesia. Morton, both with his work and his actions, opened a new page in the medical world, especially in the treatment of pain during surgical interventions.