MISCELLANEOUS TOPICS 169 



Morton had already experimented with it, he sug- 

 gested to Dr. Morton its pain-expelling effects. 

 Apparently, there floated in Dr. Jackson's mind 

 ideas regarding the employment of ether in surgery, 

 but Morton took the further step of extensive ex- 

 periment and use, and, above all, he demonstrated 

 in the Massachusetts General Hospital that it was 

 safe, effective and reliable. This brought it into 

 general use. 



Another man, Dr. Crawford Long, nearly antic- 

 ipated the discovery of Morton. He was a practi- 

 tioner in a small town of Georgia, and in March, 

 1842, he had placed a patient profoundly under the 

 influence of ether and had painlessly removed a 

 tumor from the neck. He had also used ether in 

 other operations prior to 1846. In point of time he 

 antedated Morton, but he had some misgivings as to 

 whether it was the effect of the ether that produced 

 insensibility, or a sort of hypnotic influence exerted 

 by himself, and his results were not published till 

 1849. 



Although Jackson had vaguely divined the possi- 

 ble utility of ether in surgery, and Long had used it 

 in local country practice, it remained for Morton to 

 carry the matter to a practical conclusion. It re- 



