History of Charlton, (Worcester County) Massachusetts United States of America

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William Thomas Green Morton, dentist, was born in Charlton township, Mass., Aug. 9, 1819; son of James Morton; grandson of Thomas Morton, a Revolutionary soldier, and a descendant of Robert Morton, who came from Scotland to Meriden, Mass., and removed thence to New Jersey, where he founded Elizabethtown. His father, a farmer, lost his property in 1835, and William was obliged to leave school and support himself. He studied dentistry with Horace Wells in Hartford, Conn., was a partner of Dr. Wells in Hartford, and soon after removed to Boston. He was married in May, 1844, to Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Whitman, of Farmington, Conn. He entered as a student of medicine the office of Dr. Charles T. Jackson in March, 1844, and in July, 1844, first applied hydro-chloric ether to the tooth of a patient before applying the instrument used in filling, and he thus discovered that ether caused insensibility to pain. He then applied hydro-chloric ether to insects, birds and small quadrupeds, but with no positive results. He matriculated at Harvard medical school in 1844, where he made the acquaintance of Dr. Joseph C. Warren , and attended clinical lectures at the Massachusetts General hospital. On September 30, 1846, he shut himself alone in a room, breathed hydrochloric ether, and was rendered for a time insensible, as described by himself after recovering. He next administered it to a patient with a painful tooth, and he extracted the tooth and brought his patient to consciousness by dashing cold water in his face. On Oct. 14, 1846, Dr. Warren sent for Morton to administer his preparation to a patient then about to undergo an operation. The operation proved painless and successful. The next trial was successfully made, Nov. 7, 1846, in amputating a leg, but the profession discouraged the use of the preparation in the hospital as against the code of medical ethics, the preparation being a secret of Morton's. He soon after made a free gift of the use of his discovery to the hospital, and in 1848 the trustees presented him with a silver box containing $1,000, the inscription on the box concluding, "He has become poor in a cause which made the world his debtor." He was granted a patent for his discovery in November, 1846, and in Europe in December, 1846, and when he offered the free use of his patent to the army and navy both departments declined to have anything to do with it. The popular opposition to its use ruined his practice in Boston, and when he applied to congress for relief in 1846, and again in 1849, his claims were opposed by both Dr. Jackson and Horace Wells. In 1852 his friends obtained the introduction of a bill in congress appropriating $100,000 as a national testimonial for his discovery on condition that he should surrender his patent to the U.S. government, but it failed to pass, as it did in 1853 and 1854. The medical profession of Boston, New York and Philadelphia gave the bill tardy support in 1856, 1858 and 1860 respectively. The bill before congressed was so amended as to embrace the names of Jackson, Wells and Long as equally entitled with Morton to credit for the discovery of the application of ether as an an?sthesia, and as amended was never acted upon. Dr. Morton received a prize of 2,500 france from the French Academy of Sciences for the application of the discovery to surgical operations. He was also decorated by the governments of Rubin and Sweden, and the commonwealth of Massachusetts caused his name to he placed second in the list of fifty-three immortals that adorn the dome of the State house in Boston. Dr. Nathan P. Weyman, of New York, left a history of the part taken by Dr. Morton in the ether controversy in "Trial of a Public Benefactor" (1859). Dr. Morton engaged in farming at Wellesley, Mass., and died suddenly while in Central Park, New York city, July 15, 1868.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

History of Charlton, (Worcester County) Massachusetts

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