MORTON, WULrAM THOMAS GREEN, 1819-1868, b. Mass.; ccmmenced studying dentistry in Baltimore in 1840, continued there for 18 months and settled in Boston. He is, more than for anything else, known as the introducer and discoverer of the surgically useful anfesthetic properties of sulphuric ether. His attention was first called to the subject in 1844 when attending lectures at the medical college in Boston, and after some experiments performed upon himself, he administered the ether to a man Sept. 30, 1846, and extracted a firmly rooted tooth without pain. He repeated the operation, and making known the results to Dr. John C. Warren, he administered ether at the latter's request in the Massachusetts general hospital, Oct. 16, 1846, to a man for the operation of removing a tumor from the jaw. Dr. Morton obtained a patent for the use of ether, under the name of " letheOn," in 1846, a month after the operation in the hospital, and a month after this, in England Dr.-0, T. Jackson also claimed the honor
of having made the discovery, and the .Boynton priie of the French academy was — equally awarded to Dr. Morton and to Dr. Jackson, but Dr. Morton declined to accept it, which resulted in his receiving in 1852 the large gold medal, the Moyuton prize in medicine and surgery. He claimed compensation from congress for his invention, the government having used it, and also from individuals, and he was .11 many snits. He received, however, no compensation, and his life was spent in contests, literary, and legal, in regard to his invention. Memorials were presented to congress signed by many physicians, but for one reason or another they failed to secure what was asked. His latter years were spent upon a farm at Wellesley, Mass. where he d., from an affection brought on by reading an article which sought to deprive him of the merit of his discovery.