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August 1996
Volume 60 |
Number 8
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| Ether Day 150th
Anniversary Celebration Set for October |
Elliott V. Miller, M.D., President
Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology
This October, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) is celebrating
the 150th anniversary of William T.G. Morton's public demonstration
of the use of ether anesthesia with a three-day conference sponsored
by the Department of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School (HMS)
and MGH. Beginning the afternoon of October 15, the conference
will feature tours, scientific presentations and a celebratory
black-tie dinner to commemorate this special anniversary.
It was on October 16, 1846, that Boston dentist William T.G. Morton
stunned the medical community. In a public demonstration, he rendered
patient Gilbert Abbott senseless by having him inhale ether before
undergoing surgery to remove a jaw tumor. Word of Morton's accomplishment
spread quickly around the world and changed the way surgery was
practiced forever.
To mark this important medical milestone, tours of related sites
throughout the Boston area have been arranged for conference participants
who will be in Boston on October 15. Tour stops will include the
Ether Dome at MGH, the site of the demonstration; the Ether Monument
in the Boston Public Garden; and historic Mt. Auburn Cemetery
in Cambridge, the burial site of Morton, Charles Jackson (who
collaborated with Morton), Charles Bulfinch, architect of the
original MGH building, and MGH physicians Jacob and Henry Jacob
Bigelow and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Later that evening, participants
are invited to attend a special viewing of historical relics and
portraits related to medicine at the Francis A. Countway Library
of Medicine at HMS.
The scientific symposium will begin on October 16 at 9 a.m. in
the Great Hall of Faneuil Hall. This 18th-century meeting house
was dubbed the "Cradle of Liberty" by John Adams in
part because of its use as a central meeting place during the
Revolutionary War. The first day's presentations include, among
others, "A Revisionist's History of Ether Day," by Guillermo
Sanchez, M.D., of MGH and HMS; "This Is Something Which Will
Go 'Round the World," by Gwenifer Wilson, M.D., F.F.A.R.A.C.S.,
of St. George Hospital, Sydney, Australia; and "John Warren
and the Surgical Staff," by Francis D. Moore, M.D., Surgeon-in-Chief
Emeritus at the former Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and the Moseley
Professor of Surgery Emeritus at HMS.
Day two of the symposium will focus on the future of health care
and biomedical research. Presentations will be made by such noted
researchers as Clifford J. Woolf, M.B., Ph.D., M.R.C.P., University
College of London and Hospital Trust, who will discuss "Central
Mechanisms of Pain, Implications for Prevention and Treatment";
David H. Sachs, M.D., Director, MGH Transplantation Biology Research
Center and Paul S. Russell/Warner-Lambert Professor of Surgery
at HMS, on "Organ Transplantation in the 21st Century";
Donald S. Coffey, Ph.D., Professor of Urology, Oncology and Pharmacology,
The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, on "Cancer,
Computers and Chaos"; Philip Leder, M.D., John Emory Andrus
Professor of Genetics at HMS and a senior investigator at Howard
Hughes Medical Institute, on "Cancer: Is It Really a Genetic
Disease?" Several other researchers are also scheduled to
make presentations.
Symposium participants are also invited to attend a cocktail reception
and black-tie dinner to be held October 16 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.
at the Copley Plaza Hotel. Samuel O. Thier, M.D., President of
MGH and Chief Executive Officer for Partners HealthCare System,
will be the keynote speaker.
ASA members are encouraged to register early for these events,
which will fill on a first-come, first-served basis. For further
information, to receive a registration packet or to make reservations,
please contact: Jennifer W. Thomas, MGH Development and Public
Affairs Office, 101 Merrimac St., Fourth Floor, Boston, MA 02129;
telephone: (617) 724-6426; fax: (617) 726-7661; e-mail: <thomasje@a1.mgh.harvard.edu>.
Elliott V. Miller, M.D., is affiliated with
Massachusetts General Hospital and is Assistant Professor at Harvard
Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.
E-mail the author.
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