science · 15 July 1868 · 156 years ago
death
Died 15 Jul 1868 at age 48 (born 9 Aug 1819).
William T(homas) G(reen) Morton was an American surgeon who was the first dentist to use ether (letheon) during an tooth extraction, privately on on 30 Sep 1846. He followed this by a public demonstration of this method of anesthesia on16 Oct 1846 during an operation performed by Dr. John Collins Warren (1778-1856) at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The patient, Gilbert Abbott, age 20, had a small superficial tumor removed from beneath the left lower jaw. The suggestion to use ether came from the chemist Charles T. Jackson, (1860-1913). After the success of the public demonstration, the use of ether for painless operations spread quickly to other countries.
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