WILLIAM THOMAS GREEN MORTON, M.D. (1819 – 1868)
& THE ETHER CONTROVERSY
Born in Charlton, Massachusetts, William Thomas Green Morton was the son of James Morton and Rebecca (Needham) Morton. Horace Wells first met Morton on a professional visit at the home of his father, James. This was several years before Morton thought about taking up dentistry, which occurred when he was 21. In 1841, he went to Hartford, Connecticut to study under Horace Wells. Later Morton and Wells shared a brief partnership (it was dissolved because Wells thought Morton unqualified).
Morton proceeded to open a dental practice in Boston, and, in 1844, he began to study medicine with Dr. Charles Thomas Jackson (1805-1880), who later described him as a “skillful operator in dentistry.” In 1844, Morton entered Harvard Medical School, and attended Jackson’s chemistry lectures, where he learned about the anesthetic properties of ether. In July 1844, on Jackson’s advice, Morton employed chloric ether to deaden pain while filling a patient’s tooth, and Jackson provided vials of the ether to other dentists as well. With that knowledge in hand, Morton left Harvard without completing the requirements for a degree.
In January 1845 Morton was present when Horace Wells, his former teacher and dental partner, attempted unsuccessfully to demonstrate the anodyne properties of nitrous oxide gas. Determined to find a more reliable pain-killing chemical, Morton consulted his former teacher, Charles T. Jackson, and discussed the possible use of ether.
On the last day of June in 1846, Morton abandoned his dental practice on the grounds that “he had discovered something which would enable him to extract teeth without pain, and that this discovery would require all his time and attention.” He began to experiment with both students and dogs and, in September, Morton approached an instrument maker about a possible delivery or administration mechanism of an unidentified gas or compound for use in painless tooth extraction.
The series of events that followed would prove to be highly contentious, and imbued with controversy for the next decade.