HMHistoria MedicaHistory of medicine, examined.

Source / Anaesthetic instrument

Morton's ether inhaler

This glass inhaler in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History is associated with Boston dentist William T. G. Morton and the early circulation of ether anaesthesia after October 1846. It is not the inhaler used in the celebrated Massachusetts General Hospital operation.

Read carefully, the object is evidence not of a lone invention but of a rapidly changing technique: a volatile drug, an improvised delivery vessel, patients and practitioners testing uncertain effects, a hospital and medical press able to publicise results, and unresolved contests over ownership and priority.

Catalogue identity
Smithsonian MG.M-09600, catalogued as an ether inhaler made by Morton in 1846; gift of Gustave P. Wiksell
Date problem
The online record transcribes its plate as saying it was supplied to dentist William L. Johnson in autumn 1846; a 2009 object study reads the plate as 1848
Form
Glass inhaler displayed on a wooden stand; the catalogue's 81.28 × 48.26 cm measurement is for the mounted object overall
Historical scope
Boston and transatlantic medicine, 1842–1848: dental experiments, public surgical trials, replication, risk, patenting, and contested credit
Read the source profileAll sources & objects

Reading the object

The catalogue, plate, and vessel support different kinds of claim.

The Smithsonian record identifies the object as Morton's work, assigns it a date of 1846, and transcribes the brass plate on its stand. The record is a valuable collection source, but it does not publish a chain of custody from Morton to Johnson to Wiksell. The plate itself is an attribution attached to a display, not a contemporaneous case record.

The date must remain open

The catalogue says the instrument was supplied to Boston dentist William L. Johnson in autumn 1846. Rajesh Haridas's 2009 study of three inscribed inhalers, based on photographs and Smithsonian correspondence, reads the same plate as “fall of 1848” and records its donation by Wiksell in 1911. It also notes that the plate reverses Morton's usual initials from W.T.G. to W.G.T. Neither discrepancy proves the object false, but both prevent a precise 1846 provenance from being treated as settled.

The vessel turned evaporation into a breathing route

In the inhalers described in 1846–47, ether—then commonly called “sulphuric ether,” although it was diethyl ether rather than sulphuric acid—wet a sponge inside a glass vessel. Air drawn through the container acquired ether vapour and travelled to the patient's mouth. Henry Jacob Bigelow's November 1846 report described a two-necked globe, an enlarged evaporating surface, and a mouthpiece valve that diverted exhaled air away from the vessel.

“Morton's inhaler” was not one fixed design

Morton altered tubes, mouthpieces, air inlets, and valves while the method was being tried. Haridas concludes that the Smithsonian object was probably among the types Morton used, possibly in dental rooms, but not at the hospital demonstration. Evidence conflicts over whether Morton's 16 October apparatus had valves; Bigelow's published description can be tied more securely to the apparatus used on 17 October. The preserved form should therefore not be projected backwards as an exact blueprint of the first hospital trial.

Before and during Ether Day

The 16 October operation was one step in a longer sequence.

1842–45, Georgia and Connecticut: Crawford W. Long later reported using ether during surgery in Jefferson, Georgia, from 1842, but did not publish his cases until 1849. Dentist Horace Wells used nitrous oxide for dental pain in Hartford from 1844 and attempted a Boston demonstration in 1845; a patient's cry helped observers dismiss the trial even though the patient later denied pain. These episodes show why “first” can mean first use, first public test, first publication, or first effective dissemination rather than one uncontested achievement. A historical analysis by Manisha and Sukumar Desai assigns Long, Wells, Charles T. Jackson, and Morton different, overlapping contributions.

30 September 1846, Morton's dental rooms: Morton's extraction of a tooth from Eben H. Frost under inhaled ether supplied a publicised dental case. Morton had consulted Boston physician and chemist Charles T. Jackson, whose precise contribution soon became bitterly disputed. Dental practice mattered materially: painful extractions created a market for relief, dentists already worked with proprietary devices and preparations, and a short procedure offered a setting in which an inhaled agent could be tested.

16 October, Massachusetts General Hospital: Morton administered ether while surgeon John Collins Warren operated on Edward Gilbert Abbott. This event became “Ether Day,” but the familiar account compresses the evidence. Paul Firth's re-examination of Abbott's hospital record finds an attempted ligation of the blood supply to a congenital vascular lesion, called an “erectile tumour” in nineteenth-century notes—not removal of a neck tumour. Abbott did not react to the first incision but later moved and cried out. Bigelow reported that he described considerable though reduced pain; a retrospective note added to the hospital record says that he denied pain. The anaesthesia was incomplete, and the lesion was unchanged when Abbott left hospital on 7 December.

17 October–18 November: The next day George Hayward removed a fatty tumour from an unnamed woman's arm. Bigelow reported that she later said she had felt no pain and had known nothing of the operation. On 7 November Hayward performed an above-knee amputation under ether, a more severe test, while Warren's separate jaw operation on Betsey Magoun was complicated by dangerous respiratory distress. Bigelow presented the sequence as four public operations, not as a single decisive case, in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal on 18 November.

Delivery, judgement, and risk

The inhaler made vapour available; it did not make dosage predictable.

The glass globe gave ether a bounded route into the lungs, but concentration still depended on the liquid, sponge, temperature, air movement, the seal at the mouth, and the patient's breathing. In a simple draw-over inhaler the patient's own inspiration moved air through the vessel. A blocked route, an ineffective valve, or rebreathing exhaled air could reduce oxygen as well as alter ether delivery.

Evaporation cooled the apparatus

As ether evaporated it removed heat from the glass, sponge, and incoming air. The cooler vessel then yielded less vapour. John Snow explained this problem in On the Inhalation of the Vapour of Ether in Surgical Operations (1847) and devised a temperature-regulated metal inhaler. His criticism is contemporary evidence that an apparently simple vessel could become less effective during use.

The operator read bodies rather than an instrument scale

There was no dial showing delivered concentration and no agreed physiological endpoint. Morton and other administrators watched breathing, movement, responsiveness, and the progress of the operation, then continued or stopped inhalation. Snow's five “degrees of etherization” were an early effort to turn variable observations into teachable clinical stages. They were a practitioner's working classification, not equivalent to present-day monitoring.

Patients supplied essential but difficult evidence

Movement, crying out, later recollection, and statements about pain did not always agree. Abbott's case demonstrates the problem: observers saw actions suggesting distress, while later testimony was inconsistent. Betsey Magoun's life-threatening hypoxia and respiratory complications, reconstructed by Firth from the fourth hospital trial, also complicate any story in which successful insensibility immediately established safety. The surviving sources tell us far less about what these patients were told, understood, or chose than about the reputations of the named practitioners.

Circulation, ownership, and credit

Publication and replication mattered more than possession of one vessel.

From Boston to Europe: Bigelow's detailed report made the hospital trials portable in print. Letters and publications left Boston aboard the Acadia on 3 December. In London on 19 December, dentist James Robinson extracted a tooth under ether at Francis Boott's house; on 21 December surgeon Robert Liston performed an amputation under ether at University College Hospital. A history of early anaesthetic machines traces inhalers made in Britain, France, and Germany from published descriptions. A design could circulate without the Smithsonian object, a licence, or Morton's direct instruction.

Secrecy and patent: Morton initially withheld the composition of his preparation and subsequently promoted the name “Letheon.” U.S. Patent 4,848, granted to Morton and Jackson on 12 November 1846 for an “improvement in surgical operations”, claimed the application of ether vapour to produce insensibility during surgery; it was not a patent on this museum object. Morton's separate inhaler patent with Augustus A. Gould followed in November 1847. The earlier claim provoked objections that relief from pain should not be restricted by fees and proved difficult to enforce.

Credit as a historical problem: Long's earlier use, Wells's nitrous-oxide work, Jackson's advice, Morton's dental and hospital administrations, Warren's and Hayward's operations, Bigelow's publication, instrument makers' labour, and patients' participation answer different questions. Sally Frampton's study of surgical invention and credit shows that the ether dispute joined humanitarian claims to professional reputation and hoped-for income. Calling this object “Morton's” records a powerful historical association; it does not settle discovery, priority, or ownership of anaesthesia.

Across the collection

Continue from the inhaler

Ether anaesthesia

Place the Boston trials within earlier inhalation experiments, dentistry, surgery, publicity, replication, and contested priority.

History of anaesthesia

Trace changing agents, airway management, specialist roles, physiological observation, monitoring, and safety.

References

Sources and further reading

  1. National Museum of American History, “Original Morton Inhaler for Ether,” MG.M-09600

    Collection record for the object, with catalogue attribution, date, materials, dimensions, credit line, identifiers, and transcription of the stand's plate. The museum notes that its database may be revised.

  2. R. P. Haridas, “William TG Morton's Early Ether Inhalers: A Tale of Three Inhalers and Their Inscriptions,” Anaesthesia and Intensive Care 37, supplement 1 (2009): 30–35

    Peer-reviewed object study comparing inscriptions, photographs, published descriptions, and institutional correspondence. It documents the 1848 reading of this object's plate, its 1911 donation, uncertain valve chronology, and misattribution of a different inhaler.

  3. Henry Jacob Bigelow, “Insensibility during Surgical Operations Produced by Inhalation,” Boston Medical and Surgical Journal 35, no. 16 (18 November 1846): 309–317

    Digitised contemporary report of Morton's dental cases and four public hospital operations, including an inhaler description. Bigelow was an advocate and witness, and his publication is a case series rather than a controlled test; DOI: 10.1056/NEJM184611180351601.

  4. Paul G. Firth, “Ether Day Revisited: The Surgical Records of Edward Gilbert Abbott,” Annals of Surgery Open 3, no. 2 (2022): e166

    Close analysis and transcription of Abbott's Massachusetts General Hospital record, separating the operative note from a later retrospective addition and correcting the procedure, diagnosis, outcome, and degree of anaesthesia; DOI: 10.1097/AS9.0000000000000166.

  5. Paul G. Firth, “Beyond Ether Day: Betsey Magoun, the Forgotten Patient,” Anesthesia & Analgesia 136, no. 2 (2023): 408–416

    Historical reconstruction of the fourth public hospital trial and its serious respiratory complications, used here to restore patient risk and caution to the adoption story; DOI: 10.1213/ANE.0000000000006290.

  6. Manisha S. Desai and Sukumar P. Desai, “Discovery of Modern Anesthesia: A Counterfactual Narrative about Crawford W. Long, Horace Wells, Charles T. Jackson, and William T. G. Morton,” AANA Journal 83, no. 6 (2015): 410–415

    Historical analysis that distinguishes the four men's contributions rather than assigning an undifferentiated discovery to one claimant; PMID: 26742335.

  7. Charles T. Jackson and William T. G. Morton, “Improvement in Surgical Operations,” U.S. Patent 4,848, granted 12 November 1846

    Primary legal document specifying the claimed application of ether vapour to surgical operations. Its expansive novelty language represents the patentees' claim, not neutral proof of priority.

  8. William T. G. Morton, Remarks on the Proper Mode of Administering Sulphuric Ether by Inhalation (Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, 1847)

    Digitised National Library of Medicine copy of Morton's instructions on ether, apparatus, effects, difficulties, and dangers. It records a promoter-practitioner's evolving method and should not be read as an independent assessment of his claims.

  9. John Snow, On the Inhalation of the Vapour of Ether in Surgical Operations (London: John Churchill, 1847)

    Digitised contemporary monograph based on nearly eighty operations, with an empirical staging of etherisation and a temperature-regulated apparatus. It demonstrates how quickly practitioners sought more consistent delivery.

  10. Pablo Romero-Ávila, Carlos Márquez-Espinós, and Juan R. Cabrera Afonso, “Historical Development of the Anesthetic Machine: From Morton to the Integration of the Mechanical Ventilator,” Brazilian Journal of Anesthesiology 71, no. 2 (2021): 148–161

    Open-access review of early evaporative inhalers, their rapid international multiplication, cooling and concentration problems, and the later development of regulated delivery; DOI: 10.1016/j.bjane.2021.02.017.

  11. National Museum of American History, “Ether Inhaler,” patent model MG.M-04291

    Collection record for the model submitted by Augustus A. Gould and Morton for U.S. Patent 5,365 in November 1847. It distinguishes the later apparatus patent from the 1846 claim on applying ether to surgery.

  12. Sally Frampton, “Honour and Subsistence: Invention, Credit and Surgery in the Nineteenth Century,” British Journal for the History of Science 49, no. 4 (2016): 561–576

    Peer-reviewed history of the ether patent controversy and the relationship among surgical innovation, professional ethics, journals, priority, reputation, and financial reward.

  13. Royal College of Anaesthetists, “The History of Anaesthesia”

    Professional historical overview used for the documented British reception in December 1846 and for the longer development of anaesthetic skill, equipment, and specialist practice.