Today in History . . .

[Deb in IA]

On September 30, 1846, dentist William Morton used ether as an anesthetic for the first time on a patient in his Boston office.

On September 30, 1927, New York Yankee slugger Babe Ruth hit his 60th home run of the season to break his own major-league record; it stood until Roger Maris of the Yankees hit 61 homers in 1961.

On September 30, 1938, British, French, German and Italian leaders decided to appease Adolf Hitler by allowing Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland.

On September 30, 1955, actor James Dean was killed in a two-car collision near Cholame, Calif.

 

[Sheree Bobbins]

Hooray for ether! Thank goodness for all the progress in dentistry.

 

[ILUVDXL]

Wouldn't you know it was a BOSTON dentist. Guess we're just ahead of of time in the area.

Thanks, Deb

 

[olena]

Thanks, Deb...

 

[JerseyJanice]

I wonder what the anesthetic was. (I doubt Novocaine was in existence then.)

 

[Big Dude]

On September 30, 1927, New York Yankee slugger Babe Ruth hit his 60th home run of the season to break his own major-league record; it stood until Roger Maris of the Yankees hit 61 homers in 1961.



Ya gotta love those Yankees!!!



Adam aka Big Dude

 

[Goofyposter]

Thanks Deb!

Two victories and two losses

 

[Banzai]

Good news for the dentist, but htey still have not gotten one strong enough...

 

[RoqueC]

Thanks for the info! Dentistry is mega-important.

 

[EROS]

Thanks, DEB............for all visitors to Boston, you can visit the "Ether Dome" at MGH (Mass General Hospital, not "Man's Greatest Hospital")

It has the makings of a great movie — powerful characters, an enticing plot and a strange twist of events — only this drama unfolds, in part, right here at the MGH. It involves the controversy surrounding four men who each claim to be the first to discover the means to prevent pain during surgery.

Possibly the first to conceive of using ether to alleviate the pain of surgery was Crawford W. Long, MD, of Georgia. It was not until others took credit for the finding that he claimed to have used it as early as 1841 for minor operations. In January 1845, after using nitrous oxide successfully during tooth extractions, Horace Wells, a Connecticut dentist, was permitted to demonstrate his technique to a group of Harvard Medical School students at the MGH. Perhaps because Wells had administered an insufficient dose, the patient cried out in pain. The crowd laughed, yelled “humbug” and drove Wells out of Boston. In 1864, the American Dental Association and the American Medical Association credited Wells with the discovery.

Two years later Boston dentist William T.G. Morton, a colleague of Wells, administered ether to Gilbert Abbott at the MGH, marking the first successful public demonstration of the technique. Morton called his drug “letheon” but later was forced to reveal that it was simply ether.

Finally, Charles Jackson, MD, a Boston physician and chemist who had advised Morton to use ether, claimed to have a large part in the discovery and pressed his claims for credit all the way to Congress, which upheld Morton as the true discoverer.

So widely appreciated was the achievement of painless surgery that in 1868 a Bostonian named Thomas Lee had a monument erected in the Public Garden “to commemorate the discovery that the inhaling of ether causes insensibility to pain. First proved at the Mass. General Hospital in Boston.” The granite and red marble memorial remains the park’s only monument to an event rather than an individual. At the time, its commissioning was somewhat controversial — some deemed it inappropriate to celebrate man’s attempt to circumvent God’s law by eliminating pain. Below is the sculpture depicting the biblical parable of the Good Samaritan that sits atop the ether memorial.

 

[nativetxn]

Thanks Deb, your history tidbits are always so interesting

 

[SPAGo 98]

RIP james dean.

thanks deb.