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The last days of William Thomas Green Morton
ELSEVIER
The Last Days of William Thomas Green Morton Leroy D. Vandam,
MD*
Department ofAnaesthesia, Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA.
and Department
OfAnesthesia,
Following the public demonstration of ether anesthesia on October 16, 1846, William Thomas Green Morton, in a Faustian kind of bargain, traded a flourishing dental practice for the pursuit of fame and reward, a choice marked by subsequent controversy and disappointment. Assigning his practice in Boston to a fellow dentist, Nathan Cooley Keep,* Morton became somewhat of an itinerant anesthetist officiating at operations both at the Massachusetts General Hospital and at locally hired halls, culminating in his ministrations to the wounded on May 5-6, 1864 at the Battle of the Wilderness in the War between the States. His persistent efforts to defend his priority, to capitalize on the patent for his “in-
vention,” and to seek monetary reward in the United States and recognition abroad caused financial embarrassment and hardship for his family, which ended
with
his death
on July 15,1868,
at the age of 48. Another
casualty
amongst
those associated with the introduction of ether anesthesia, was the death by suicide of his one time mentor and partner in dental practice, Horace Wells, in January 1848, scarcely aged 33 years, in the Tombs Prison in New York City. Similarly, Morton’s former medical school tutor, landlord, advisor in matters regarding ether, and eventually bitter adversary, Charles T. Jackson, MD, turned hopelessly insane over his frustrations before dying in 1880 at the age of ‘75. Grace Steele Woodward’s biography of Morton, The Man Who Conquered Pain,’ is based on some 500 previously unpublished written letters loaned to her by Morton’s grandson, Sidney Otis. Bearing a stamp of authenticity somewhat lacking in other writings, Woodward’s fictive account of the events leading to Morton’s demise in 1868, includes the following: Yet in July 1868, as though the gods were not yet through with him, Morton, in his forty-eighth year, was stirred one last time to defend himself, and the peace was shattered. For several years Morton heard little of Dr. Jackson and his activities. His persecution of Morton seemed to have ceased. But Jackson was an unyielding opponent, and in this quiet, peaceful, postwar summer his diabolical wrath against Morton broke loose one last time, like a tornado, attempting to demolish every shred of human dignity that Morton had left. In June, Jackson had managed to have an article written by a J.H. Abbott supporting his claims to the ether discovery. The article was published in the distinguished Atlantic Monthly. And on the evening of July 6, against the advice of all his friends and family, Morton left for New York to see an editor about answering the Abbott article. The truth must prevail! The truth must prevail! This had become his obsession . Mrs. Morton went down to the train with him and quietly through the
*Professor Emeritus of Anaesthesia Address reprint requests to Dr. Vandam at the Department of Anesthesia, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 75 Francis St., Boston, MA 02115, USA. Received for publication February 13, 1996; revised manuscript accepted for publication April 29, 1996.
*Keep later became the first person in America to use ether to alteviate the pains of labor-for Fanny Longfellow, the second wife of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.’
Journal of Clinical Anesthesia 8:431-434, 1996 0 1996 by Elsevier Science Inc. 655 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10010
095%8180/96/$15.00 PI1 SO952-8180(96)00125-0
Sesquicentenary of the Ether Demonstration open window until time for his departure, they talked to each other. He leaned out of the window and waved good-bye as the train moved out of the station. A few days later, Morton sent his wife a telegram from New York saying that he was ill and asking her to come to him. When Mrs. Morton reached New York she found her husband very ill indeed. The physician in attendance, Dr. Sayre, said the trouble was “articular rheumatism.” The weather was unseasonably hot all over New England, but in New York heat prostrations were occurring at the rate of one hundred a day. On July 15, by two in the afternoon, the thermometer stood at 92 degrees in the shade. The New York sky was cloudy, the air hot and clammy, and Morton was having difficulty breathing. One of his legs pained him considerably. But around eight that night, he insisted on getting out of bed and dressing. The sheets were like fire, he said.
Albert M. Betcher vividly and more precisely described the subsequent events in an editorial in the journal AnesthesioZogy3some 111 years after the Ether Demonstration.* A RIDE THROUGH CENTRAL PARK Wednesday, July 15, 1868, dawned hot, muggy and intense, just as it had for three previous days. The New York Herald that day reported over one hundred persons in the city having been prostrated by the heat during the past twenty-four hours with over two hundred and fifv fatalities resulting from the excessive heat of the past three days. In a small room in the Riverside Hotel a woman awoke from a fitful nap and stroked the brow of her husband who lay limply across the bed. Fatigue, anxiety and sleepless nights had already left their mark upon his face and body. Fretting over a recent publication in New York depreciating his claims, he had come to the city in the midst of its worst heat wave. As the day wore on and he appeared to worsen, the woman summoned two physicians. The learned Doctors Sayre and Yale attended this poor soul and ordered leeches to his temples, cups on the spine and ice to his head. As soon as the doctors left he announced to his wife that he knew he would soon be well if he could but get out of the hot city. He ordered his buggy to be brought around to the hotel. Where shortly before he seemed almost stuperous he now appeared to be bursting with energy. His wife trailed behind him as he literally leaped into the carriage, grasped the reins and directed the horse over to Fifth Avenue. He drove furiously northward. At 59th Street, he turned into the Park and continued north at a dangerous rate of speed. Near the upper end of the Park, his wife noted the froth at the horse’s mouth. She gently touched the hands that held the reins. Whether it was this maneuver or that he noted a lake nearby, the driver suddenly stopped the carriage, leaped from the buggy and headed in the direction of the lake. The woman later said that she did not think there was anything seriously wrong with him and so did not object to his getting out of the carriage when in the park. As a matter of fact it was several minutes before she decided to follow him and found him at the edge of the lake bathing his head. She persuaded him to get back into the buggy. He drove a short distance almost to the end of the Park. Here, he again
*The information and data for his article were obtained from newspaper reports in the files of the New York Historical Society.
432
J. Clin. Anesth., vol. 8, September 1996
alighted, sat down on the grass, and leaned back against tree. He lapsed into unconsciousness. A Park policeman joined the crowd which quickly gathered at this turn of events. This official summoned an ambulance from nearby St. Luke’s Hospital.+ The next morning (July 16), the New York Tribune reported that a gentleman of Boston, Massachusetts, found insensible at the corner of 110th Street and Sixth [now Lenox] Avenue had died on the way to St. Luke’s Hospital. On the seventeenth of July, the same newspaper properly identified the gentleman in the Obituary Section: “The record of deaths by sunstroke in our issue of yesterday includes the name of William Thomas Green Morton, M.D., whose labors in introducing the anesthetic process into surgical operations have given him an eminent place among the benefactors of the human race.”
At that time, one of the attending physicians at St. Luke’s Hospital was Charles E. Heywood, who in 1846, had issued the invitation for Morton to be present at the Massachusetts General Hospital and who had also written the admitting history, physical examination, and postoperative notes on Edward Gilbert Abbott,4 patient of the operation performed by the surgeon, John Collins Warren, under ether anesthesia. Also on the staff at St. Luke’s was John Call Dalton, Pathological Chemist at the hospital, who in 1846 held the appointment of Pharmacist at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and was also present at the Ether Demonstration. One wonders what their emotional reactions were upon learning of Morton’s admission and death. According to Woodward,’ the details of Morton’s funeral service were as follows [Etherton was the name given by the citizens of West Needham (now Wellesley) , Massachusetts, ure I)].
to identify
the cottage
on Morton’s
estate
(Fig-
Dr. Morton’s funeral was conducted at Etherton at 2:15 on Saturday afternoon, July 18, 1868. He was buried at Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. Mrs. Morton, supported by her two older sons, Willie and Eddie, stood with her two daughters and the young Bowdie at the open grave for the last rites. Spruce Avenue, which ran in front of the gravesite, was lined with carriages as far as the eye could see. Morton’s friends had come to pay their last respects. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes stood with Dr. Henry Bigelow (founder of the Mt. Auburn Cemetery). Amos Lawrence, Richard Dana, Rufus Choate, Dr. Jacob Bigelow-Boston’s “first men”-paid homage to Morton under the unremitting sun. Many of the doctors from the hospital had come, too, to bid farewell. John May, who had lent the Mortons financial aid in the last few years, came and stood by Mrs. Morton. The minister read the words, “I am the resurrection and the life . . .”
+According to Woodward,’ Officer Thompson advised speedy removal to St. Luke’s, He held Morton in his arms but he died. On his person were several gold medals that had been presented to him by foreign governments and other valuables that were taken care of by his widow.
The last days of William Thomas Green Morton: Vandam Mrs. Wm. T.G. Morton Dear Madam, In the name of the subscribers to the Morton Testimonial, we desire to inform you that a Monument has been erected at Mount Auburn to the memory of your Husband. Accept it for yourself and family as a mark of our gratitude to his memory upon its four faces are inscribed the following words, W.T.G. Morton, Inventor
and Revealer of
Anesthetic
Inhalation
Born August 9, 1819 Died July 15, 1868
1. The Morton Cottage (Etherton), home of William Thomas Green Morton, on Route 16 in Wellesley, Massachu-
Figure
setts, around
1920, a short time before
of Wellesley Historical
it was razed
(Courtesy
Society).
Erected
bv Citizens
of Boston
On the remaining three sides of the white granite the base of the shaft these words are graven:
block at
BEFORE WHOM
Later a white marble monument was placed in Mt. Auburn at Dr. Morton’s grave, with inscriptions composed by Dr. Jacob Bigelow: When Charles T. Jackson
in all time Surgery was Agony
saw these inscriptions,
he flew
into an uncontrolled rage. His violent actions brought him straight to the McLean Hospital, where he remained, hopelessly insane, until his death some twelve years later on August 28, 1880. He, too, is interred at Mt. Auburn Cemetery, less than three hundred yards away on Mountain Road on the crest of a hi1k5 There is a perplexing discrepancy in the dates given here, for according to the records of the Mt. Auburn Cemetery W.T.G. Morton’s remains were brought there on September ‘7,1868, assigned to an underground receiving tomb, then transferred to lot #3940 on November 13, 1869. Certainly, as is confirmed by the archives section at Mt. Auburn, this chain of events raises a fair number of questions. Was the body embalmed? There is no way of knowing from Mt. Auburn’s records. Embalming became well known during the Civil War in conjunction with the preserving of soldiers’ bodies for shipment from the battle fields to their homes. Certainly Dr. Morton’s body could have been embalmed. Perhaps it was preserved on ice (seems unlikely); or perhaps it was enclosed in an air-tight coffin; or perhaps decomposition was occurring while it was in transit and the sensibilities of the 1860s were accustomed to that situation. It appears that the body may have been in Wellesley from July to September of 1868. The Greenbrier Path receiving tomb was a tomb structure lined with brick dug into a hillside slope with shelves for the temporary storage of coffins. The deed to the lot was received by Mrs. Morton on July 3, 1870. This delay was occasioned by the straightened financial status of the widow but amended by public subscription, according to the following letter, written in the hand of Jacob Bigelow and preserved in the Morton Book at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Boston Dee 15 1870
BY WHOM Pain in Surgery was averted and annulled SINCE WHOM Science has control of pain We remain, Dear Madam, Very respectfully your Friends, Henry Ingersoll Bowditch C.G. Putnam William Whiting John J. May Henry I. Bowditch Francis Minot Geo. Hayward R.M. Hodges Samuel Kneeland Luther Parkes J. Collins Warren Executive timonial
Committee
of the Subscribers
to the Morton
Tes-
The Morton Family grave site on Spruce Avenue in Cambridge’s Mount Auburn Cemetery is shown in Figure 2. In addition to the monument, the headstones identify the other (but not all) members of the Morton family whose dates of interment and their ages at the time have been provided by Mt. Auburn.
J. Clin. Anesth., vol. 8, September 1996
433
Sesquicentenaly of the Ether Demonstration
3. The Morton family in 1863 (?). Seated from left to right are Bowditch, Marion, Mrs. Morton, and Bessie; behind them are Willie, Dr. Morton, and Eddie. (Reproduced with permission from Woodward.*)
Figure
2. The Morton family grave at Mt. Auburn Cemetery. Center: memorial to Dr. W.T.G. Morton. Right: headstone of his wife Elizabeth W. Morton, 1826-1904. Left, front: headstone of a son, Nathaniel Bowditch Morton, MD, 1857-1909. Left, rear: headstones of William J. Morton, 1845-1920, and his wife, Ellen Komizer Morton, 1888-1953. (Reproduced with permission from Alper5). Figure
Lot No. 3940 Proprietor Elizabeth W. Morton (Mrs. W.T.) No. 1. 2. 3. 4. 3. 6. 7.
Name William T. G. Morton Elizabeth W. Morton Nathaniel Bowditch Morton Marion Alethe von Enlenberg William James Morton Elizabeth Whitman Otis Ellen Komizer Morton
Date
Sept. 7, 1868 Apr 24, 1908 Feb. 10, 1914 June 9, 1917 April 6, 1920 Jan. 9, 1922 May 8, 1953
be
48-1l-4 78-0-O 52-8-2 70-O-O 72-o-o 71-o-o 65-2-22
A Morton family photograph is shown in Figure 3. The listings at Mt. Auburn require further explanation. Ellen Komizer Morton was William James Morton’s second wife. Eddie is buried elsewhere, probably at Cape Colony in South Africa, where he resided. Elizabeth Whitman Morton, the mother, who had lived for a while with her son William James, was an occupant of the Martha Washington Hotel at the time of her death in 1904 in New York City.
434
J. Clin. Anesth., vol. 8, September 1996
Most of the members of the Otis branch of the family are interred in Boston’s Forest Hills Cemetery, Lot No. 575, on Allanthus Path, the original proprietor, Theodore Otis. And for the record, because they are difficult to find, the grave sites of W.T.G. Morton’s parents, who lived at the West Needham estate with their son, can be found in Wellesley, Massachusetts in Woodlawn Cemetery. The gravestones are on lot no. 31 on the top of a knoll going directly up from the cemetery work shed, in poor repair, and inscribed as follows. Capt. James Morton d. Feb. 11, 1867 Aged 79 yrs, 8 mos. 21 days Mrs. Rebecca Morton, d. May 6. 1876 wife of the late James, aged 87 “Gone Away But Not Forgotten”
References 1. Pittinger CB: The anesthetization of Fanny Longfellow for childbirth on April 7, 1847. Anesth Analg 1987;66:368-9. 2. Woodward GS: The Man Who Conquered Pain. Boston: Beacon Press, 196‘2. 3. Betcher AM: A ride through Central Park. Anesthesiology 1957;18: 785-6. 4. Vandam LD: Charles Frederick Heywood. House Surgeon at the Ether Demonstration. Anesthesiology 1995;82:772-8. 5. Alper MH: The ether controversy revisited. Anesthesiology 1964;25: 360-3.
The Last Days of William Thomas Green Morton Leroy D. Vandam,
MD*
Department ofAnaesthesia, Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA.
and Department
OfAnesthesia,
Following the public demonstration of ether anesthesia on October 16, 1846, William Thomas Green Morton, in a Faustian kind of bargain, traded a flourishing dental practice for the pursuit of fame and reward, a choice marked by subsequent controversy and disappointment. Assigning his practice in Boston to a fellow dentist, Nathan Cooley Keep,* Morton became somewhat of an itinerant anesthetist officiating at operations both at the Massachusetts General Hospital and at locally hired halls, culminating in his ministrations to the wounded on May 5-6, 1864 at the Battle of the Wilderness in the War between the States. His persistent efforts to defend his priority, to capitalize on the patent for his “in-
vention,” and to seek monetary reward in the United States and recognition abroad caused financial embarrassment and hardship for his family, which ended
with
his death
on July 15,1868,
at the age of 48. Another
casualty
amongst
those associated with the introduction of ether anesthesia, was the death by suicide of his one time mentor and partner in dental practice, Horace Wells, in January 1848, scarcely aged 33 years, in the Tombs Prison in New York City. Similarly, Morton’s former medical school tutor, landlord, advisor in matters regarding ether, and eventually bitter adversary, Charles T. Jackson, MD, turned hopelessly insane over his frustrations before dying in 1880 at the age of ‘75. Grace Steele Woodward’s biography of Morton, The Man Who Conquered Pain,’ is based on some 500 previously unpublished written letters loaned to her by Morton’s grandson, Sidney Otis. Bearing a stamp of authenticity somewhat lacking in other writings, Woodward’s fictive account of the events leading to Morton’s demise in 1868, includes the following: Yet in July 1868, as though the gods were not yet through with him, Morton, in his forty-eighth year, was stirred one last time to defend himself, and the peace was shattered. For several years Morton heard little of Dr. Jackson and his activities. His persecution of Morton seemed to have ceased. But Jackson was an unyielding opponent, and in this quiet, peaceful, postwar summer his diabolical wrath against Morton broke loose one last time, like a tornado, attempting to demolish every shred of human dignity that Morton had left. In June, Jackson had managed to have an article written by a J.H. Abbott supporting his claims to the ether discovery. The article was published in the distinguished Atlantic Monthly. And on the evening of July 6, against the advice of all his friends and family, Morton left for New York to see an editor about answering the Abbott article. The truth must prevail! The truth must prevail! This had become his obsession . Mrs. Morton went down to the train with him and quietly through the
*Professor Emeritus of Anaesthesia Address reprint requests to Dr. Vandam at the Department of Anesthesia, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 75 Francis St., Boston, MA 02115, USA. Received for publication February 13, 1996; revised manuscript accepted for publication April 29, 1996.
*Keep later became the first person in America to use ether to alteviate the pains of labor-for Fanny Longfellow, the second wife of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.’
Journal of Clinical Anesthesia 8:431-434, 1996 0 1996 by Elsevier Science Inc. 655 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10010
095%8180/96/$15.00 PI1 SO952-8180(96)00125-0
Sesquicentenary of the Ether Demonstration open window until time for his departure, they talked to each other. He leaned out of the window and waved good-bye as the train moved out of the station. A few days later, Morton sent his wife a telegram from New York saying that he was ill and asking her to come to him. When Mrs. Morton reached New York she found her husband very ill indeed. The physician in attendance, Dr. Sayre, said the trouble was “articular rheumatism.” The weather was unseasonably hot all over New England, but in New York heat prostrations were occurring at the rate of one hundred a day. On July 15, by two in the afternoon, the thermometer stood at 92 degrees in the shade. The New York sky was cloudy, the air hot and clammy, and Morton was having difficulty breathing. One of his legs pained him considerably. But around eight that night, he insisted on getting out of bed and dressing. The sheets were like fire, he said.
Albert M. Betcher vividly and more precisely described the subsequent events in an editorial in the journal AnesthesioZogy3some 111 years after the Ether Demonstration.* A RIDE THROUGH CENTRAL PARK Wednesday, July 15, 1868, dawned hot, muggy and intense, just as it had for three previous days. The New York Herald that day reported over one hundred persons in the city having been prostrated by the heat during the past twenty-four hours with over two hundred and fifv fatalities resulting from the excessive heat of the past three days. In a small room in the Riverside Hotel a woman awoke from a fitful nap and stroked the brow of her husband who lay limply across the bed. Fatigue, anxiety and sleepless nights had already left their mark upon his face and body. Fretting over a recent publication in New York depreciating his claims, he had come to the city in the midst of its worst heat wave. As the day wore on and he appeared to worsen, the woman summoned two physicians. The learned Doctors Sayre and Yale attended this poor soul and ordered leeches to his temples, cups on the spine and ice to his head. As soon as the doctors left he announced to his wife that he knew he would soon be well if he could but get out of the hot city. He ordered his buggy to be brought around to the hotel. Where shortly before he seemed almost stuperous he now appeared to be bursting with energy. His wife trailed behind him as he literally leaped into the carriage, grasped the reins and directed the horse over to Fifth Avenue. He drove furiously northward. At 59th Street, he turned into the Park and continued north at a dangerous rate of speed. Near the upper end of the Park, his wife noted the froth at the horse’s mouth. She gently touched the hands that held the reins. Whether it was this maneuver or that he noted a lake nearby, the driver suddenly stopped the carriage, leaped from the buggy and headed in the direction of the lake. The woman later said that she did not think there was anything seriously wrong with him and so did not object to his getting out of the carriage when in the park. As a matter of fact it was several minutes before she decided to follow him and found him at the edge of the lake bathing his head. She persuaded him to get back into the buggy. He drove a short distance almost to the end of the Park. Here, he again
*The information and data for his article were obtained from newspaper reports in the files of the New York Historical Society.
432
J. Clin. Anesth., vol. 8, September 1996
alighted, sat down on the grass, and leaned back against tree. He lapsed into unconsciousness. A Park policeman joined the crowd which quickly gathered at this turn of events. This official summoned an ambulance from nearby St. Luke’s Hospital.+ The next morning (July 16), the New York Tribune reported that a gentleman of Boston, Massachusetts, found insensible at the corner of 110th Street and Sixth [now Lenox] Avenue had died on the way to St. Luke’s Hospital. On the seventeenth of July, the same newspaper properly identified the gentleman in the Obituary Section: “The record of deaths by sunstroke in our issue of yesterday includes the name of William Thomas Green Morton, M.D., whose labors in introducing the anesthetic process into surgical operations have given him an eminent place among the benefactors of the human race.”
At that time, one of the attending physicians at St. Luke’s Hospital was Charles E. Heywood, who in 1846, had issued the invitation for Morton to be present at the Massachusetts General Hospital and who had also written the admitting history, physical examination, and postoperative notes on Edward Gilbert Abbott,4 patient of the operation performed by the surgeon, John Collins Warren, under ether anesthesia. Also on the staff at St. Luke’s was John Call Dalton, Pathological Chemist at the hospital, who in 1846 held the appointment of Pharmacist at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and was also present at the Ether Demonstration. One wonders what their emotional reactions were upon learning of Morton’s admission and death. According to Woodward,’ the details of Morton’s funeral service were as follows [Etherton was the name given by the citizens of West Needham (now Wellesley) , Massachusetts, ure I)].
to identify
the cottage
on Morton’s
estate
(Fig-
Dr. Morton’s funeral was conducted at Etherton at 2:15 on Saturday afternoon, July 18, 1868. He was buried at Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. Mrs. Morton, supported by her two older sons, Willie and Eddie, stood with her two daughters and the young Bowdie at the open grave for the last rites. Spruce Avenue, which ran in front of the gravesite, was lined with carriages as far as the eye could see. Morton’s friends had come to pay their last respects. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes stood with Dr. Henry Bigelow (founder of the Mt. Auburn Cemetery). Amos Lawrence, Richard Dana, Rufus Choate, Dr. Jacob Bigelow-Boston’s “first men”-paid homage to Morton under the unremitting sun. Many of the doctors from the hospital had come, too, to bid farewell. John May, who had lent the Mortons financial aid in the last few years, came and stood by Mrs. Morton. The minister read the words, “I am the resurrection and the life . . .”
+According to Woodward,’ Officer Thompson advised speedy removal to St. Luke’s, He held Morton in his arms but he died. On his person were several gold medals that had been presented to him by foreign governments and other valuables that were taken care of by his widow.
The last days of William Thomas Green Morton: Vandam Mrs. Wm. T.G. Morton Dear Madam, In the name of the subscribers to the Morton Testimonial, we desire to inform you that a Monument has been erected at Mount Auburn to the memory of your Husband. Accept it for yourself and family as a mark of our gratitude to his memory upon its four faces are inscribed the following words, W.T.G. Morton, Inventor
and Revealer of
Anesthetic
Inhalation
Born August 9, 1819 Died July 15, 1868
1. The Morton Cottage (Etherton), home of William Thomas Green Morton, on Route 16 in Wellesley, Massachu-
Figure
setts, around
1920, a short time before
of Wellesley Historical
it was razed
(Courtesy
Society).
Erected
bv Citizens
of Boston
On the remaining three sides of the white granite the base of the shaft these words are graven:
block at
BEFORE WHOM
Later a white marble monument was placed in Mt. Auburn at Dr. Morton’s grave, with inscriptions composed by Dr. Jacob Bigelow: When Charles T. Jackson
in all time Surgery was Agony
saw these inscriptions,
he flew
into an uncontrolled rage. His violent actions brought him straight to the McLean Hospital, where he remained, hopelessly insane, until his death some twelve years later on August 28, 1880. He, too, is interred at Mt. Auburn Cemetery, less than three hundred yards away on Mountain Road on the crest of a hi1k5 There is a perplexing discrepancy in the dates given here, for according to the records of the Mt. Auburn Cemetery W.T.G. Morton’s remains were brought there on September ‘7,1868, assigned to an underground receiving tomb, then transferred to lot #3940 on November 13, 1869. Certainly, as is confirmed by the archives section at Mt. Auburn, this chain of events raises a fair number of questions. Was the body embalmed? There is no way of knowing from Mt. Auburn’s records. Embalming became well known during the Civil War in conjunction with the preserving of soldiers’ bodies for shipment from the battle fields to their homes. Certainly Dr. Morton’s body could have been embalmed. Perhaps it was preserved on ice (seems unlikely); or perhaps it was enclosed in an air-tight coffin; or perhaps decomposition was occurring while it was in transit and the sensibilities of the 1860s were accustomed to that situation. It appears that the body may have been in Wellesley from July to September of 1868. The Greenbrier Path receiving tomb was a tomb structure lined with brick dug into a hillside slope with shelves for the temporary storage of coffins. The deed to the lot was received by Mrs. Morton on July 3, 1870. This delay was occasioned by the straightened financial status of the widow but amended by public subscription, according to the following letter, written in the hand of Jacob Bigelow and preserved in the Morton Book at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Boston Dee 15 1870
BY WHOM Pain in Surgery was averted and annulled SINCE WHOM Science has control of pain We remain, Dear Madam, Very respectfully your Friends, Henry Ingersoll Bowditch C.G. Putnam William Whiting John J. May Henry I. Bowditch Francis Minot Geo. Hayward R.M. Hodges Samuel Kneeland Luther Parkes J. Collins Warren Executive timonial
Committee
of the Subscribers
to the Morton
Tes-
The Morton Family grave site on Spruce Avenue in Cambridge’s Mount Auburn Cemetery is shown in Figure 2. In addition to the monument, the headstones identify the other (but not all) members of the Morton family whose dates of interment and their ages at the time have been provided by Mt. Auburn.
J. Clin. Anesth., vol. 8, September 1996
433
Sesquicentenaly of the Ether Demonstration
3. The Morton family in 1863 (?). Seated from left to right are Bowditch, Marion, Mrs. Morton, and Bessie; behind them are Willie, Dr. Morton, and Eddie. (Reproduced with permission from Woodward.*)
Figure
2. The Morton family grave at Mt. Auburn Cemetery. Center: memorial to Dr. W.T.G. Morton. Right: headstone of his wife Elizabeth W. Morton, 1826-1904. Left, front: headstone of a son, Nathaniel Bowditch Morton, MD, 1857-1909. Left, rear: headstones of William J. Morton, 1845-1920, and his wife, Ellen Komizer Morton, 1888-1953. (Reproduced with permission from Alper5). Figure
Lot No. 3940 Proprietor Elizabeth W. Morton (Mrs. W.T.) No. 1. 2. 3. 4. 3. 6. 7.
Name William T. G. Morton Elizabeth W. Morton Nathaniel Bowditch Morton Marion Alethe von Enlenberg William James Morton Elizabeth Whitman Otis Ellen Komizer Morton
Date
Sept. 7, 1868 Apr 24, 1908 Feb. 10, 1914 June 9, 1917 April 6, 1920 Jan. 9, 1922 May 8, 1953
be
48-1l-4 78-0-O 52-8-2 70-O-O 72-o-o 71-o-o 65-2-22
A Morton family photograph is shown in Figure 3. The listings at Mt. Auburn require further explanation. Ellen Komizer Morton was William James Morton’s second wife. Eddie is buried elsewhere, probably at Cape Colony in South Africa, where he resided. Elizabeth Whitman Morton, the mother, who had lived for a while with her son William James, was an occupant of the Martha Washington Hotel at the time of her death in 1904 in New York City.
434
J. Clin. Anesth., vol. 8, September 1996
Most of the members of the Otis branch of the family are interred in Boston’s Forest Hills Cemetery, Lot No. 575, on Allanthus Path, the original proprietor, Theodore Otis. And for the record, because they are difficult to find, the grave sites of W.T.G. Morton’s parents, who lived at the West Needham estate with their son, can be found in Wellesley, Massachusetts in Woodlawn Cemetery. The gravestones are on lot no. 31 on the top of a knoll going directly up from the cemetery work shed, in poor repair, and inscribed as follows. Capt. James Morton d. Feb. 11, 1867 Aged 79 yrs, 8 mos. 21 days Mrs. Rebecca Morton, d. May 6. 1876 wife of the late James, aged 87 “Gone Away But Not Forgotten”
References 1. Pittinger CB: The anesthetization of Fanny Longfellow for childbirth on April 7, 1847. Anesth Analg 1987;66:368-9. 2. Woodward GS: The Man Who Conquered Pain. Boston: Beacon Press, 196‘2. 3. Betcher AM: A ride through Central Park. Anesthesiology 1957;18: 785-6. 4. Vandam LD: Charles Frederick Heywood. House Surgeon at the Ether Demonstration. Anesthesiology 1995;82:772-8. 5. Alper MH: The ether controversy revisited. Anesthesiology 1964;25: 360-3.