1846: Dentist William Morton uses ether to anesthetize a patient in Boston. It was not the first such use, but it began a train of events leading to the widespread adoption of ether for surgical ...

One day last week 10,000 Southerners poured into the little town of Jefferson in northern Georgia. Most of them went to see Postmaster General Jim Farley, posting through the South on one of his ...

In 1846, a dentist and a surgeon tried something dramatically new: the first public operation performed with anesthesia. Armed with a glass globe filled with ether, they anesthetized a patient and ...

THE toxic effects of chloroform on the liver are well known and feared. Studies on animals have suggested a similar role for other anesthetic agents, particularly the ethers. Goldschmidt, Ravdin and ...

Greg Balla, Lee Sellars (seated), Tom Patterson and Richmond Hoxie act in a scene from "Ether Dome." (Courtesy T. Charles Erickson/Huntington Theatre) On Oct. 16, 1846, a flustered young man named ...