William T. G. Morton

On October 16, 1846, Morton successfully administered sulfuric ether to a patient undergoing removal of a neck tumor by surgeon John Collins Warren in the Ether Dome at Massachusetts General Hospital. The demonstration proved that ether could render patients insensible to surgical pain, an achievement that transformed medicine worldwide.

Georgia physician Crawford Long used ether in surgery as early as 1842, several years before Morton, but did not publish his results until 1849. Morton's 1846 demonstration in Boston was the first public, widely reported event that brought surgical anesthesia to immediate international attention.

Morton, his former partner Horace Wells (who had experimented with nitrous oxide), and chemist Charles Jackson all claimed credit for the discovery of ether anesthesia. The bitter priority dispute consumed years of their lives—Wells died by suicide in 1868, and Morton never secured the patent rights or financial reward he sought.

Yes, the Ether Dome at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston is preserved as a National Historic Landmark and is open to the public for self-guided visits. It functioned as the hospital's surgical amphitheater and remains one of the most significant sites in the history of medicine.