CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN SCIENTIFIC MEDICINE 



The American dentist just referred to, who was, with 

 one exception to be noted presently, the first man in the 

 world to conceive that the administration of a definite 

 drug might render a surgical operation painless, and to 

 give the belief application, was Dr. Horace Wells, of 

 Hartford, Connecticut. The drug with which he experi- 

 mented was nitrous oxide ; the operation which he ren- 

 dered painless was no more important than the extrac- 

 tion of a tooth yet it sufficed to mark a principle ; the 

 year of the experiment was 1844. 



The experiments of Dr. Wells, however, though im- 

 portant, were not sufficiently demonstrative to bring the 

 matter prominently to the attention of the medical 

 world. The drug with which he experimented proved 

 not always reliable, and he himself seems ultimately to 

 have given the matter up, or at least to have relaxed his 

 efforts. But meantime a friend, to whom he had com- 

 municated his belief and expectations, took the matter 

 up, and with unremitting zeal carried forward experi- 

 ments that were destined to lead to more tangible re- 

 sults. This friend was another dentist, Dr. W. T. G. 

 Morton, of Boston, then a young man, full of youthful 

 energy and enthusiasm. He seems to have felt that the 

 drug with which Wells had experimented was not the 

 most practicable one for the purpose, and so for several 

 months he experimented with other allied drugs, until 

 finally he hit upon sulphuric ether, and with this was 

 able to make experiments upon animals, and then upon 

 patients in the dental chair, that seemed to him abso- 

 lutely demonstrative. 



Full of eager enthusiasm, and absolutely confident of his 

 results, he at once went to Dr. J. C. Warren, one of the 

 foremost surgeons of Boston, and asked permission to 

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