344 HENRY JACOB BIGELOW. 



Had Dr. Bi'tfelow left no other record, the association of his name 

 with the great inventive discovery of artificial anaesthesia would 

 preserve his memory to the latest period of civilizatiou. On the 

 evening of November 2, 1846, he called at my house in Charles 

 Street with a j^aper which he proposed reading at the meeting of 

 tiie American Academy of Arts and Sciences, to be htld the next 

 day, and which he wished me to hear. He began by telling me 

 of the successful use of the inhalation of a gas or vapor which pro- 

 duced insensibility, during which a capital operation had been per- 

 formed at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He was in a state of 

 excitement as he spoke of the great discovery that the gravest oper- 

 ations could be performed without the patient's knowing anything 

 about it until it was all over. In a fortniglit, the news of this won- 

 deiful discover}-, he said, will be all over Europe. He then proceeded 

 to read to me the paper he had prepared, — the first formal presenta- 

 tion of the subject to the scientific world. The following is the 

 official report, copied from the records of the Academy: — 



"November 3d, 1846. 



" Dr. Henry J. Bigelow read a paper giving some account of the new 

 method of inhalation employed by Dr. Morton of this city to produce in- 

 sensibility to pain during the performance of operations by the dentist 

 and the surgeon." 



No person took hold of Dr. Morton's discovery with such far-see- 

 ing, almost prophetic appreciation as the young surgeon who had been 

 but a few years in practice, and who threw all the energy and ardor 

 of his early manhood into his advocacy of the new and startling in- 

 novation which was destined to change the whole aspect of surgery. 

 It was not merely by his sagacious foresight that he recognized the 

 importance of this epoch-making novelty, but throughout its subse- 

 quent history, until its universal acceptance, he was the foremost 

 champion of the claims of artificial aniBsthesia. After the use of 

 chloroform was introduced Dr. Bigelow remained faithful to the origi- 

 nal anassthetic agent, and was always ready to battle in the cause of 

 ether as against chloroform, which, though more convenient, and in 

 many cases useful, is a more dangerous agent than the other. His 

 writings on this subject extend through a period of thirty years, from 

 1846 to 1876. 



In the year 1850 Dr. Bigelow published a remarkable article on a 

 case which may be considered on the whole as the most extraordinary 

 in the anuals of surgical injury. This was the famous "crowbar 



