Search

Extravagant claims were made for proprietary dental anesthetics in Boston, MA, in the late 1800s. For instance, in 1883, Urial K. Mayo introduced an inhaled Vegetable Anaesthetic comprised of nitrous oxide that had been uselessly pretreated with botanical material. This misguided concept may have been inspired by homeopathy, but it was also in line with the earlier false belief of Elton R. Smilie, Charles T. Jackson, and William T.G. Morton that sulfuric ether could volatilize opium at room temperature. In 1895, the Dental Methyl Company advertised an agent they called Methyl, a supposedly perfect topical anesthetic for painless dental extraction. The active ingredient was probably chloroform. Anesthetic humbug did not cease in Boston on Ether Day of October 16, 1846., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Since centuries the first public demonstration of the anaesthetic properties of ether by William Thomas Green Morton at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston on October 16th 1846 is celebrated as "Ether Day" world-wide. The news of the beneficial effects, primarily disposed as a "Yankee Invention", spread over all continents quickly. This was the result of an article, published in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal on November 18th, 1846. It is mentioning worth that this article was written when Morton had disclosed that the used "preparation", later named as "Nostrum" or "Letheon", was sulphuric ether. The important discovery later became a patent case and was overshadowed by a long lasting priority claim. Nevertheless the readers of the New England Journal of Medicine voted in a survey that this article was the most important publication in the 200 years journals history ever., (© Georg Thieme Verlag Stuttgart · New York.)