| |
September 1996
Volume 60 |
Number 9
|
| |
|
| October 16, 1846:
A Day in History |
Doris K. Cope, M.D., Trustee
Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology
On the occasion of the 150th anniversary
of W.T.G. Morton's public demonstration of ether, the author
takes the reader back to October 16, 1846, and describes the
current events and social and political climates of the times.
On October 16, 1846, the war with Mexico is in full tilt with
"Old Rough and Ready" Taylor, a Whig, leading an invasion
on the Rio Grande into the heart of Mexico. However, his relations
with President James K. Polk, a Democrat, are showing signs of
cooling. The war with Mexico became all but inevitable after the
annexation of Texas early last year. President Polk, supported
by the Democratic majority in the Senate, had hoped to preserve
the peace by sending John Slidell to Mexico with an offer of $5
million to buy New Mexico and $25 million to purchase California.
His offer was refused. Last April 25, Mexican forces attacked
American troops, injuring or killing 16 men. When news reached
Washington, D.C., two weeks later, Congress declared war, appropriating
$10 million and authorizing the President to call for 50,000 volunteers.
The nation, however, is divided in opinion about the war. The
South favors the war as a way to extend slave territory, while
the North generally opposes the war for the same reason.
Meanwhile, back in the East at the U.S. Military Academy at West
Point, the recent graduates of the senior class of 1846 are impatient
to join the fight against Mexico. These classmates included George
B. McClellan, a bright, confident, aristocratic Philadelphian
who was second in his class, and Thomas Jackson, known as "Old
Jack" and who later will be known as "Stonewall."
Jackson, an eccentric mountain boy from western Virginia, had
been accepted at the very last minute when another candidate dropped
out, and he had barely passed his first year. A.P. Hill, the soon-to-be-famous
Southern general, and the even more famous McClellan were roommates
and best friends who both proposed to the same girl (she was later
to marry McClellan). Another classmate, George E. Pickett, will
lead the heroic charge at Gettysburg under fierce opposition from
troops led by his Northern classmate John Gibbon. But now they
are all classmates, united in their fervor to fight for the United
States against all enemies.
Also in the news is John C. Fremont. He led his third expedition
to California with 60 armed men, ostensibly to survey the central
Rockies and the Great Salt Lake region. However, arriving in California
this spring, he supported and probably even instigated the Bear
Flag Revolt. In this recent uprising, the American settlers in
the San Francisco Bay area seized the town of Sonoma, raising
a standard that included the name of the republic, a grizzly bear
and a star on a field of white. This led Robert F. Stockton, a
naval officer commanding the U.S. forces on the Pacific Coast,
to declare the annexation of California by the United States and
to establish himself as governor only two months ago.
In the field of literature, Herman Melville is one of America's
most promising young authors after the publication of his first
novel, Typee, this year. This romance of the South Seas
is based on his personal experience as a sailor and will foreshadow
his later work, Moby Dick. Another hit, Evangeline,
an idyllic tale in verse based on a story told to Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow by Nathaniel Hawthorne, was also published in the last
few months. Tall stories of the frontier are widely read and can
be obtained in a popular collection called Mince Pie for the
Millions, which came out recently, author unknown. Included
in this collection are "Skinning a Bear," "The
Death Hug" and "A Sensible Varmint," the last story
involving the ubiquitous Davy Crockett. These stories are written
in frontier dialect with colorful misspellings. They generally
involve animals, particularly bears and game animals such as the
raccoon (spelled rakkoon in "A Sensible Varmint").
An important event this year was the establishment of the Smithsonian
Institution in Washington, D.C., by the U.S. Congress. James Smithson,
an illegitimate son of the Duke of Northumberland, left more than
a half million dollars in his will to establish such an institution.
It took Congress more than 17 years to determine exactly how to
spend the money.
Also, higher education is growing rapidly as evidenced by the
chartering of the following universities: Baylor University in
Waco, Texas (February 1, 1845), U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis,
Maryland (October 10, 1845), Bucknell University in Lewisburg,
Pennsylvania (February 5, 1846), and Grinnell College in Grinnell,
Iowa (June 17, 1846).
This year, the first sewing machine with an eye-pointed needle
was patented in the United States by Elias Howe. Also, the panorama,
a moving picture mounted on rollers depicting travel down the
Mississippi River, is being exhibited by John Barnard and is wildly
popular. This has begun a craze for visual displays of popular
subjects such as the burning of Moscow or the life of Napoleon
Bonaparte, which are now seen mounted on the walls of circular
buildings all over the country.
Baseball is an exciting new sport as Alexander J. Cart-wright,
a New York City firefighter, has drawn up a set of rules and organized
the first baseball club, the Knickerbockers. Other clubs are also
being formed adopting Cartwright's rules. Some of these rules
are: four bases (not two, three or five) 90 feet apart in a square;
flat, not raised bases; the batter standing in a box at home plate,
not at some distance from it; and the outlawing of "plugging"
a base runner in which a thrown ball hits a player "out."
Lyceum series is also a popular form of entertainment and inspiration.
Lectures on "premature burial" and phrenology are well-attended,
and Orson Squire Fowler has just published his bestseller, Matrimony:
Or, Phrenology and Physiology Applied to the Selection of Congenial
Companions for Life. Since the divorce rate remains low, this
may be as good a process as any for the selection of a spouse.
A middle-class income is approximately $1,500 a year, but Sylvester
Graham, for whom the cracker will soon be named, earns $300 a
night lecturing up and down the East Coast, extolling the virtues
of bread as the mainstay of a healthy diet. The wholesome bread
he describes should be baked entirely from whole grain by the
woman of the house herself, not by any servants. In his lectures,
he additionally warns of the debilitating effects of any stimulants,
including not only alcohol but meat, warm baths and sweets. Graham
also ascribes cholera, a common devastating disease, to both chicken
pie and "excessive lewdness." Another popular lecturer
is John Bartholomew Gough, a reformed alcoholic from England.
After hearing his story of the evils of drinking, thousands of
people in his audiences are signing the teetotaler's pledge, and
grassroots support for the temperance movement is growing.
The metropolitan population of the United States is increasing
dramatically after the great Irish potato famine, which began
last year. A blight and British trade policy contributed to the
precipitous decline of the population of Ireland from 8,500,000
to 6,550,000 this year, partly from starvation but also from the
arrival of an estimated 1,600,000 Irish immigrants to American
cities, where they can find work as cheap domestic and menial
laborers. Also, other Americans are on the move as the Mormons
have just left Nauvoo, Illinois, building and equipping 12,000
wagons to carry their families and belongings westward. By the
middle of May, more than 16,000 Mormon settlers have crossed the
Mississippi River. Later, in December, a pioneer group of 87 people
who will be headed by two brothers, Jacob and George Donner, are
planning to take a new shortcut through the Wasatch Mountains
to begin new lives in the West.
These are exciting times. Books, lectures and scientific discoveries
promise a cultural renewal and a better standard of living than
ever before for Americans across the land.
These expansive times formed the social, political and intellectual
setting for the first public demonstration of anesthesia. The
environment encouraged innovations that occurred almost daily
in every field of human endeavor.
Dr. Morton brooded about Horace Wells' failure two years before
and was determined to succeed in demonstrating a new way to
provide painless surgery. His success was the genesis of our
specific practice of medicine. We owe much to the times and
to that event.
Doris K. Cope, M.D., is Director of Research
and Associate Professor of Anesthesiology and Physiology at the
University of South Alabama Medical Center, Mobile, Alabama.
return to top
Home >Newsletters
>September 1996Home >Test
|