THE FIRST OPERATION UNDER ETHER. 1 47 



CALEB BUTLER (D. C, 1800) TO EPHRAIM ABBOT 

 (H. C, 1S06), OF WESTFORD. 



Groton, Aug. 10, 1836. 



Dear Sir, — On examining my old minutes I find there was an 

 uncertainty respecting the distance fi-om Prescott's hill to Westford 

 Meetinghouse, «& as I made that no part of the route from Lowell to 

 Worcester, I never corrected it. I have now measured a base line 

 from Prescott's to another hill, of 350 rods, by which I find the dis- 

 tance to be 18 1 7 rods. I also find the distance of Jo. Ingall's 

 [Joe English] hill from Prescott's to be — 24 Miles 279 rods. Unco- 

 noonock, 26 miles 66 rods. The groves 40 miles 227 rods, Kysarge 54 

 miles 154 rods, what you call Mt. Washington about the last distance. 

 I suspect your needle was attracted in the bellfry about one degree 

 to the east, & in making these calculations I have so estimated 

 the bearings of the objects. 



It only remains to be ascertained, whether I see from Prescott's 

 hill, the same mountain which you see at Westford & call Mt. Wash- 

 ington. When you have leisure, on a clear day & will come to 

 Groton, I think I can satisfy you on this score. 



Yours in haste, 



C. Butler. 



THE FIRST OPERATION UNDER ETHER. 



A LIFE of Dr. Wm. T. G. Morton, of Boston, the discoverer 

 of the anaesthetic properties of sulphuric ether, was published 

 at New York in the year 1859. It was written by Dr. Nathan 

 Payson Rice, and is entitled " Trials of a Public Benefactor, 

 as illustrated in the Discovery of Etherization." In this book 

 is given an account of the first operation ever performed on 

 a patient, while under the influence of ether, which was the 

 extraction of a tooth. The subject was Ebenezer Hopkins 

 Frost, a native of Groton now dead, who is still remembered 

 by many persons. He was a son of Solomon and Dorcas 

 (Hopkins) Frost, and was born on December 7, 1824. He 

 became quite noted as a singer and teacher of music, and 

 was a member of the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston. 



