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William Thomas Green Morton (1819-1868), a dentist from Boston, Massachusetts, on October 16, 1846, administering ether to the patient during the public demonstration of an operation undertaken by the surgeon John Collins Warren to remove a neoplasm of the jaw. This was the first documented successful major surgical intervention under a general anaesthetic. Due to an earlier failure by Morton, the audience of the medical staff and students of the Massachusetts General Hospital were somewhat sceptical, but after the operation's success the surgeon pronounced Gentlemen, this is no humbug. The 29-year old patient Gilbert Abott declared he had felt no pain. (KEYSTONE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/SHEILA TERRY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY)