William T. G. Morton's English Patent for Etherization: Patently Pointless?

Boston dentist William T. G. Morton secured a provisional English patent for etherization in December 1846.

Morton's Letheon: When was the name Letheon chosen?

Letheon was the commercial name that Boston dentist William T. G. Morton chose for his ether-based "preparation" that was inhaled to produce insensibility during surgical and dental procedures.

Robert Alden Fales, the fifteen-year-old criminal chloroformist.

An ex-employee of a Newark straw hat factory, 15-year-old Robert Alden Fales battered the factory's cashier Thomas Haydon on the head multiple times with a wooden staff. Fales then applied a chloroform-soaked handkerchief to Haydon's nose until the cashier stopped moving. Arrested and convicted of murder, Fales had his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment.

Wood's and Guedel's Legacies Return to the Heartland.

Pioneering anesthesiologists Paul Wood, M.D., and Arthur Guedel, M.

James M. Clyde, D.D.S., M.S.A.: The Canadian-American who rescued the Chicago Post-Graduate School of Anaesthesia.

The Chicago Post-Graduate School of Anaesthesia (PGSA) commenced with the opening of the Columbian Exposition, eight miles north of that Chicago World's Fair in May of 1893. When PGSA founder Samuel J. Hayes, D.

From ACE to ACENO: How America's Munson added Harley's British mixture to nitrous oxide.

An Ohio dentist, Corydon Munson, patented a gasometer with an attachment for vaporizing trace amounts of volatile general anesthetics or their mixtures into unoxygenated nitrous oxide. After vaporizing a variant of George Harley's ACE mixture into nitrous oxide, Munson branded his own novel anesthetic combination as ACENO.

Emerging from tabloid scandal: Dr. U.K. Mayo's Vegetable Vapor extends nitrous oxide's anesthetic duration.

Urial K. Mayo (1816-1900) was a successful Boston dentist who was plagued by personal scandal. In 1883 he patented extending the duration of nitrous-oxide anesthesia with an alcoholic tincture of hops and poppies.

From Colton's guess to Andrews' table to Bunnell's paper to Spencer's card: Misleading the public about nitrous oxide's safety.

Famous for pioneering the oxygenation of nitrous-oxide anesthetics, Chicago surgeon Edmund Andrews trusted the Manhattan-based Colton Dental Association's claim that they had conducted 75,000 nitrous-oxide anesthetics without a single mortality. Those statistics were cited in Andrews' 1870 journal article on anesthetic risks and then, remarkably, advertised on the business cards of dentist James M. Spencer, Jr.

"To nitrous oxide, chloroform gives way": Was Dr. W.J.A. DeLancey's poetic license in advertising…inspired?

Born in New Hampshire but raised in Massachusetts, 14-year-old William J.A. DeLancey became "the man of the house" after the accidental death of his father.

The rise and demise of pain exterminator Thomas S. McNeil: Every rose has its thorns.

United Brethren minister Thomas S. McNeil formulated an analgesic nostrum in 1848, most likely from opium, alcohol, ether, and other proprietary ingredients. Massaged on externally as a pain liniment, his so-called pain exterminator could also be mixed in sweetened water and imbibed as an analgesic, antitussive, and antidiarrheal.

How chloroform anesthesia reached Lowell, Massachusetts: From Simpson's pamphlet to Gladwin's advertisement.

J.Y. Simpson of Edinburgh, Scotland discovered chloroform anesthesia in November 1847.

Etymology of Letheon: Nineteenth-century Linguistic Effervescence.

In late 1846, following his successful public demonstrations of surgical anesthesia, Boston dentist William T. G. Morton selected Letheon as the commercial name for the ether-based "preparation" he had used to produce insensibility to pain.

James M. Osgood: An Inventor Behind Sprague's "Self-Watching" Apparatus for G.Q. Colton's Revival of Nitrous-Oxide Anesthesia.

Inventor J.M. Osgood enabled a fellow Massachusetts inventor, A.

From Pulling Teeth to Pulling Legs: How Dentist-Anesthetist Samuel J. Hayes Was Mistaken for President Rutherford B. Hayes.

Newspaper editor AH Beitch recorded an anecdote in which a group of barbers gave complimentary treatment to dentist-anesthetist SJ Hayes, whom they had mistaken for US President Rutherford B. Hayes.

From Dental to Mental Institutions: A Quadruple Threat of Nitrous-Oxide Administration Before and During Mental Asylum Admission.

During the 19 century, patients undergoing anesthesia for surgical and dental procedures were at risk of being given hypoxic or dilute nitrous oxide on four separate occasions. Primary and secondary saturation during surgery could account for two administrations of 100% nitrous-oxide anesthesia, while both diagnostic and therapeutic doses of dilute nitrous oxide were frequently administered in mental asylums.

An Allied Anesthetic?: De Preissac's Political Cartoon of Hitler's Surgery.

During World War II, the French Resistance used political cartoons while fighting for France's freedom from Nazi domination. Reprinting Jean de Preissac's 1945 political cartoon of Allied leaders operating as Hitler's anesthetist and surgeons, a commemorative postcard was issued on the 20th anniversary of the radio broadcast credited with founding the French Resistance, General Charles de Gaulle's "Appeal of 18 June 1940."

From Dental to Mental Institutions: Elmer McKesson's Secondary Saturation with Nitrous Oxide.

As popularized by Elmer McKesson, MD, "secondary saturation" with nitrous oxide could expose patients to a second burst of 100% laughing gas to relax their muscles to assist surgeons. On rare occasions, this technique could provide a second opportunity for hypoxic brain damage and possible admission postoperatively to insane asylums.

A Newly Discovered Manuscript of Charles T. Jackson, MD, on the Preparation and Administration of Anesthetics for Humans and Animals.

A newly discovered handwritten manuscript of Charles T. Jackson, MD, contains instructions for the preparation and administration of sulfuric ether, information on Jackson's preferred mixture of ether and chloroform, an account of his experiments with other potential anesthetic agents, and his comments on etherizing cattle and other animals. Jackson's nine-page manuscript is believed to have been written in the autumn of 1851, around the time that he submitted his memorial on the discovery of etherization to Baron von Humboldt, and made a separate submission to the US Congress.

From Dental to Mental Institutions: An American Dentist and a British Psychiatrist Highlight Insanity Following Nitrous-Oxide Administration.

In 1887, American dentist Samuel J. Hayes published reports associating unoxygenated anesthetics with asphyxia and insanity, and then British psychiatrist George H. Savage published a report of cases of insanity following nitrous-oxide anesthesia in British journals.

A Nitrous-Oxide Pioneer Peddles His Own Dentifrice: "Dr Colton's Vegetable Dentonic".

During the latter half of the six-year long "Panic of 1873," nitrous-oxide pioneer G.Q. Colton developed, advertised, and sold his dentifrice, "Dr Colton's Vegetable Dentonic" to supplement his dental anesthetic enterprise.

From Dental to Mental Institutions: Asylum-Bound Dentist Zacheus Rogers Oxygenates Nitrous Oxide.

American dentist Zacheus Rogers taught surgeon Edmund Andrews-and indirectly anesthesia pioneers SJ Hayes and FW Hewitt-to oxygenate anesthetics. Ironically, Rogers may have himself suffered neurologic damage by failing to oxygenate the nitrous oxide that he is speculated to have abused personally.

Precarious Distraction and Carious Extraction: Nitrous Oxide during the "Second World Billiards Tournament".

During the 1879 Brunswick & Balke World Billiards Tournament, Manager FC Newhall had a tooth extracted under nitrous oxide administered by GQ Colton. The dental extraction occurred at the tournament site, New York City's Cooper Institute.

From Dental to Mental Institutions: Did Hypoxic Anesthetics by "Dental Associations" Add More Brain-Injured Patients to America's Insane Asylums?

Though most patients survived the hypoxic challenge, some patients likely suffered asphyxial brain damage from GQ Colton's nitrous-oxide techniques and were admitted to insane or lunatic asylums.