In attendance at Wells’ fateful
demonstration that day were
Harvard professor Charles Jackson
(1805 –1880) and his student William
Morton (1819–1868), who had earlier
studied dentistry under Wells himself.
After witnessing his former teacher’s
failure with nitrous oxide, Morton
asked Jackson whether some stronger
gas might be used, and Jackson
recommended ether, which he was
notorious for inhaling recreationally. In 1846, Morton gave the first successful public
demonstration of ether as a surgical anesthetic in the same hospital amphitheater where Wells
had given his, which is now known as the “ether dome.” However, shortly after Morton’s
demonstration, his erstwhile advisor Charles Jackson claimed anesthesia as his own discovery.
Jackson had tried a similar trick in 1837, claiming that he, rather than Samuel Morse,
had invented the telegraph, but on that occasion his deceit failed to convince. He was more
successful in this second attempt, but in 1847 his priority was in turn challenged by Horace
Wells, who vainly announced that he had been first in the use of inhalation anesthesia.