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The early history of anaesthesia in Canada: The introduction of ether to upper Canada, 1847

1977; Springer Nature; Volume: 24; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/bf03006228

0008-2856

David J. Steward,

History of Medicine Studies

It is apparent that, despite the earlier use of ether by a country practitioner (Crawford Long) and dentists (William Clark and Horace Wells), the influence of a pair of distinguished surgeons (John C. Warren and Henry Bigelow) was required to promote the widespread use of ether following William Morton’s demonstration of its efficacy at the Massachusetts General Hospital. The accounts that Drs. Warren and Bigelow wrote for theBoston Medical and Surgical Journal were widely reported in many countries. Dr. Bigelow’s father, Professor Jacob Bigelow, wrote a personal letter to a friend in England, Dr. Francis Boott, telling him of the discovery. Two days after receiving this letter, Dr. Boott was present when ether was first administered in England (on December 19, 1846), and two days after this Robert Liston used ether for a leg amputation at University College Hospital in London. Thus the future of surgical anaesthesia in England was assured. The abortive attempts by Morton to conceal the nature of the anaesthetic agent and to patent the process of its application little delayed the spread of the use of ether. The news of ether anaesthesia was received in Upper Canada during December 1846. In fact, the country practitioners of Brockville or Chatham heard of this discovery before Francis Boott or Robert Liston in England. Upper Canada in the 1840s was a country of pioneers: country doctors were accustomed to managing all aspects of medical care, so it is not surprising that it was these practitioners who read of ether anaesthesia and were among the first to apply it.* The use of ether for tooth extraction and surgical operations was probably widespread throughout rural Upper Canada within six months of Morton’s original demonstration — as illustrated in Fig. 3, an excerpt from theChatham Gleaner of Tuesday, May 25, 1847.