Tarnished Idol: William T. G. Morton and the Introduction of Surgical Anesthesia (review)

This is the definitive study of the introduction of anesthesia to surgery, the characters involved, and the infamous "ether controversy." It is the life's work of Richard Wolfe, who for many years as Harvard's Countway Library Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts studied and preserved documents pertaining to William Thomas Green Morton and the first public demonstration of ether anesthesia at the Massachusetts General Hospital on 16 October 1846. Wolfe has spent a lifetime researching and reading documents relevant to Morton, Charles Jackson, and Horace Wells. In Tarnished Idol he has set about proving that Morton was not the great man of later legend but a scoundrel who ought to be a footnote to history. Wolfe documents Morton's indiscretions with a passion, and has brought much clarity to the role Morton and others played in the discovery of surgical anesthesia. The comprehensive sources alone make this book a must for students of history and technology.

Tarnished Idol is not, however, a book for the novice reader in the history of anesthesiology. J. M. Fenster's Ether Day: The Strange Tale of America's Greatest Medical Discovery and the Haunted Men Who Made It (2001) is far easier to read and covers much of the same material, albeit in much less depth. Plunging into Tarnished Idol remains a daunting task. Wolfe gives a historiographic perspective to the story of the discovery of ether, its demonstration on "ether day," and the subsequent attempt to patent ether and the means used to vaporize it and render insensible a surgical patient. He points out what he feels to be the errors in interpretation that others have made. One notable example occurs early in the book, where Wolfe takes Leroy Vandam, an icon of modern anesthesiologists, to task over Vandam's understanding of Morton's parentage. With apparent glee, Wolfe demonstrates that his own review of Rhode Island birth and marriage records prove Vandam's interpretation to be wrong.

Wolfe spends considerable space explaining the origins of certain accepted "facts" about Morton. Morton commissioned a book, written by Nathan P. Rice and titled Trials of a Public Benefactor, to further his claims about the discovery of ether and to prod Congress to award him money in lieu of his unenforceable patent. Wolfe clearly differentiates fact from Rice's spin. His detailed discussion of Morton's lobbying, and of the moves and countermoves by Jackson and others, is the finest source of documentation on this issue. More important, Wolfe writes about the larger issue of how Morton's claims were viewed in the context of the norms of society at the time.

One of the most interesting parts of Tarnished Idol details Morton's search for a method by which ether could be administered. His inhaler suffered from problems in the valves, which he was constantly redesigning. In addition, he had several manufacturers produce inhalers for what he hoped would be a licensing of his method of administration, but the patent was quickly broken and he was almost ruined financially.

If there is one flaw to the book, it is that Wolfe cannot bring himself to accept the fact that Morton, and Morton alone, stood in the amphitheater on 16 October 1846 and anesthetized Gilbert Abbott. Others besides Morton certainly contributed to the discovery, and Horace Wells certainly understood that a gas could alleviate pain for simple dental extractions. Charles Jackson may have suggested ether to Morton as a useful agent in alleviating pain, but in the end neither of these two men stood alongside Morton in the operating room. Wolfe fails to understand that all discovery is done in relation to the works of others. Even though he was full of character flaws, Morton had the ability to stand and deliver under the intense gaze of the Boston surgical community...