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February 2008
Volume 72 |
Number 2 |
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| Treasures
of the WLM |
Instant Messaging, Circa 1846
Pictured to the left is the cover of the November 18, 1846
Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. In this volume,
Henry Jacob Bigelow, M.D., of the Massachusetts General
Hospital (MGH), detailed the events surrounding Dr. Morton’s
use of ether for surgery at MGH on October 16.
Today, such groundbreaking news would instantaneously have
its own entry on Wikipedia and be spread to all corners
of the globe before the procedure was even finished. Although
the profound importance of Dr. Morton’s accomplishment
was duly recognized by the physicians of the era, methods
of sharing the news with the rest of the world were limited
by the technology of the times. To the right we see that
word of Dr. Morton’s achievements finally made it
to Britain on December 21, 1846, almost two months later
— and it wasn’t printed in the Lancet until
early December 1847!
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The Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology (WLM) ranks
among the world’s premier collections devoted to anesthesia
history. Housed in the headquarters building of the American
Society of Anesthesiologists, the WLM also serves as an
active, specialized medical library. Visit us on the Web
at www.ASAhq.org/wlm.
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