The first successful public demonstration of anesthesia for surgery was Ether Day, Friday, October 16, 1846. On this day, dentist William Thomas Green Morton successfully demonstrated the inhalation of ether vapor at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston as a means of overcoming surgical pain. Although Morton neither "discovered" anesthesia nor was the first to relieve surgical pain, he was the first to effectively administer the right agent, in the right place before the right audience, at the time that allowed the "discovery" to spread.
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Cite this: Medscape Staff. Trivia Quiz: Major Medical Milestones - Medscape - Sep 26, 2022.
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