Ether is first used successfully in a public surgery.

Dentist William T.G. Morton administers the drug to Gilbert Abbott in what comes to be known as the Ether Dome of Massachusetts General Hospital. Surgeon John Collins Warren then removes a a tumor from the man’s jaw. After the patient reports feeling no pain, Warren exclaims, “Gentlemen, this is no humbug!” The operation marks the first successful, public use of ether (after private uses by a medical student in Pittsfield in January 1842, and by Dr. Crawford Long in Georgia on March 30, 1842. The event also marks the first medical procedure pioneered in America before Europe. A statue commemorating the event is erected in the Public Garden in 1868.*