The significance of Ether Day could not be overstated for surgical patient and future journalist Edward Gilbert Abbott (above, artwork by Michael Edens). Orphaned at age seven with limited financial resources, Abbott suffered from a congenital mass below his jaw. He was admitted to the Massachusetts General Hospital in October 1846 for evaluation. Without the looming demonstration of surgical etherization, this young patient, who was not gravely ill, would have been an unlikely operative candidate for surgeon John Collins Warren, M.D. From the moment Abbott drew his first breath through Morton’s ether inhaler, his life was changed. Though neither fame nor fortune followed his lengthy recovery, the 21-year-old renewed his zeal for life. Abbott was apprenticed to a printer and pursued a successful career as a journalist for The Boston Herald and The Boston Daily Bee. In 1850, he married and started a family with fellow New Englander, Mary Dunbar Fuller. Sadly, these auspicious years would not last, and in 1855, he expired from tuberculosis. Nevertheless, Abbott’s ether inhalation was historic, and Ether Day—October 16, 1846—would transform not only his own life, but also surgical practice forever. (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology.)
The significance of Ether Day could not be overstated for surgical patient and future journalist Edward Gilbert Abbott (above, artwork by Michael Edens). Orphaned at age seven with limited financial resources, Abbott suffered from a congenital mass below his jaw. He was admitted to the Massachusetts General Hospital in October 1846 for evaluation. Without the looming demonstration of surgical etherization, this young patient, who was not gravely ill, would have been an unlikely operative candidate for surgeon John Collins Warren, M.D. From the moment Abbott drew his first breath through Morton’s ether inhaler, his life was changed. Though neither fame nor fortune followed his lengthy recovery, the 21-year-old renewed his zeal for life. Abbott was apprenticed to a printer and pursued a successful career as a journalist for The Boston Herald and The Boston Daily Bee. In 1850, he married and started a family with fellow New Englander, Mary Dunbar Fuller. Sadly, these auspicious years would not last, and in 1855, he expired from tuberculosis. Nevertheless, Abbott’s ether inhalation was historic, and Ether Day—October 16, 1846—would transform not only his own life, but also surgical practice forever. (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology.)
Melissa L. Coleman, M.D., Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, Pennsylvania, and Jane S. Moon, M.D., University of California, Los Angeles, California.
