16th October 1846:
On this Friday morning, William Morton appears in the operating theatre of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).  Morton was running late, but surgeon John Collins Warren had not yet started the removal of a tumour from Gilbert Abbot's jaw.  For about 3 minutes Abbott breathed ether vapour from Morton's simple apparatus – which had been the source of his delay.  As Warren noted later, Abbott 'sank into a state of insensibility'.  The first successful public demonstration of ether anaesthesia had begun.  Abbott "did not experience any pain at the time, although aware that the operation was proceeding" Warren wrote in 1848.  The great surgeon is supposed to have declared "Gentlemen, this is no humbug."