October: The advent of painless surgery

On October 16, 1846, Dr William Thomas Green Morton made the first public demonstration of the use of diethyl ether (or sulphuric ether) as an anaesthetic on a patient during an operation.  The operation was performed by Dr John Collins Warren at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston on a 20 year old patient, Gilbert Abbott to remove a small tumour from his jaw.

The success of the demonstration led to the widespread use of ether as an anaesthetic.

As part of the RSCs image collection, we have a print entitled 'Chemical process in making the ether' from 1749 (see image).  There is also a publication in the historical collection from former President of the Chemical Society, A W Williamson 'Papers on etherification and on the constitution of salts (1850-1856)'