Historedia
Episode 1 of 2

Prior Dental Extraction

When
30 September 1846
Where
Dental practice
Part of
William T. G. Morton demonstrates ether anesthesia at Massachusetts General Hospital

Morton performed a painless dental extraction using ether, prompting the public demonstration.

On 30 September 1846, Morton administered ether to Ebenezer Hopkins Frost for a dental extraction. A favorable newspaper account of this event led Boston surgeon Henry Jacob Bigelow to arrange the famous public demonstration at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Sources

  1. William T. G. Morton Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-10
  2. History of general anesthesia Wikipedia

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.