World Anaesthesia Day: Meet William T. G. Morton, the dentist who changed anaesthesia

New Delhi: Every year on October 16, World Anaesthesia Day is celebrated around the world. The day commemorates William T. G. Morton’s first successful demonstration of diethyl ether anaesthesia on October 16, 1846. In the history of medicine, this event is considered one of the most significant and it took place in an operating theatre (now known as the Ether Dome) at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Thanks to the invention, patients can get the benefits of surgical treatment without enduring the pain of the operation. In this article, we will take a look at the life and legacy of William T. G. Morton.

Who was William T. G. Morton?

Born on August 9, 1819, in Massachusetts, William Thomas Green Morton was an American dental surgeon who gave the first successful public demonstration of ether anaesthesia during surgery. It was a revolutionary innovation as it gave the medical world surgical anaesthesia.

Morton and the historic moment in medical history

In 1844, Morton started his dental practice in Boston. In January 1845 he saw his former dental partner Horace Wells unsuccessfully trying to demonstrate the anodyne properties of nitrous oxide gas at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Morton wanted to come up with a more reliable pain-killing chemical and discussed the use of ether with his former teacher, Boston chemist Charles Jackson.

On September 30, 1846, he removed a tooth without any pain after he administered ether to the patient. It was covered by the newspaper and upon reading about it, Boston surgeon Henry Jacob Bigelow arranged for a demonstration of ether at the operating theatre of the Massachusetts General Hospital on October 16, 1846. A tumour was painlessly removed from the neck of a patient and the news of this spread rapidly around the world. Outside of the US, the first recorded usage of ether was in London by the dentist James Robinson during a tooth extraction. The MGH theatre is called Ether Dome and is a testament to the historic event.