Anesthesia has several fathers, but its birthday is 16 October 1846: on that day Boston dentist William Morton publicly demonstrated ether anesthesia at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a patient slept through surgery as the surgeon declared 'Gentlemen, this is no humbug.' Crawford Long had used ether in 1842 but published late; James Young Simpson brought chloroform in 1847.
Before anesthesia, surgery was a race against agony: the best surgeons were the fastest, patients were held down or dulled with alcohol and opium, and operations stayed shallow and short. Ether let surgeons work slowly, carefully and deep inside the body — and within months the news crossed the Atlantic, remaking medicine on both sides.
