PROCEEDINGS IN BEHALF OF THE MORTON TESTIMONIAL
Boston: George C. Rand & Avery, 1861. First Edition. Hardcover. The original 1861 publication of the testimonial of "The Medical Profession of Philadelphia, New York, and Boston) rebound in black cloth with gilt-lettered, and slightly chipped, spine label 56pp. Text clean, pages evenly toned. The last pages are in effect, forms requesting monies for Dr. Morton and his family. Very Good. Item #83848
William T. G. Morton (1819-1868) was a surgeon [dentist] in Hartford, Connecticut who claimed to be the first person to perform surgical anethesia [on a patient's tumor in 1846]. "Morton immediately patented ether, hoping to retain its use exclusively for himself. Later he made repeated appeals to the American Congress for financial recompense for his ‘invention’. Morton's instructor, the chemist and geologist Charles Thomas Jackson, said it was he who had made the discovery and had suggested that Morton should try it out. Horace Wells, the dentist from Hartford, Connecticut, put forward his well-substantiated claim to have produced anaesthesia two years earlier with nitrous oxide. It is sad that such an epoch-making event should have been followed by 20 years of acrimony, vituperation and litigation between three contestants, each claiming to have originated anaesthesia." [Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, May 2020, pp 226-227].
Price: $400.00