The Ether Monument - Boston, MA
Posted by: 
neoc1
N 42° 21.290 W 071° 04.284
19T E 329404 N 4691252
The Ether Monument, also known as the Good Samaritan, is the oldest monument in the Boston Public Garden, Boston, MA. It commemorates the first use of ether as an anesthetic during surgery.
Waymark Code: WMDJAR
Location: Massachusetts, United States
Date Posted: 01/20/2012
Views: 14
The Ether Monument, also known as the Good Samaritan, was commissioned by Thomas Lee and commemorates the discovery ether and its use as an anesthetic in surgery performed at Massachusetts General Hospital October 16, 1846. John Quincy Adams Ward was chosen to be the sculptor and Henry Van Brunt the architect. The monument was dedicated in the Boston Public Garden on September 26, 1868.
The first public surgery using anesthetic took place at the Massachusetts General Hospital on October 16, 1846. The Boston dentist William Thomas Green Morton was the first person to use inhaled ether to anesthetize Edward Gilbert Abbott. This enabled the Dean of the Harvard Medical School, John Collins Warren, to painlessly removed a tumor from Abbott's neck. Afterwards the patient felt only as if his neck had been scratched; in contrast to a less than successful attempt by Horace Wells, the previous year, to use nitrous oxide.
A 40' tall granite fountain sits in a square granite basin having a brick floor. A 35' decorative granite and marble column rises from the basin. On the top of the column is a 6' high sculpture of two figures. A Good Samaritan is wearing a beard, robe and turban. He has his left arm around the shoulders of an disrobed, curly haired, unconscious man. The Samaritan is holding a compress to the torso of the unconscious man. Four bas relief sculptures adorn each side of the column.
The south relief depicts an operation using anesthesia. The doctors wear a mix of nineteenth century and classical dress. Below is the inscription:
TO COMMEMORATE
THE DISCOVERY
THAT THE INHALING OF ETHER
CAUSES INSENSIBILITY TO PAIN
AT THE
MASS. GENERAL HOSPITAL
IN BOSTON
OCTOBER A. D. MDCCCXLVI
On the north side a Union Civil War field surgeon stands ready to amputate a wounded soldier's leg. The soldier is asleep under the influence of ether. Below is the inscription:
IN GRATITUDE
FOR THE RELIEF
OF HUMAN SUFFERING
BY THE INHALING OF ETHER
A CITIZEN OF BOSTON
HAS ERECTED
THIS MONUMENT
A. D. MDCCCLXVII
THE GIFT OF THOMAS LEE
On the east side an angel hovers above a suffering man. Below is an inscription from the Book of Revelation:
NEITHER SHALL THERE BE ANY MORE PAIN
REV
On the west side a woman, representing Science, sits on a throne of laboratory glassware and laboratory apparatus while a Madonna and Child look on with approval. Above is an inscription from the Book of Isaiah:
THIS ALSO COMETH FORTH
FROM THE LORD OF HOSTS
WHICH IS WONDERFUL
IN COUNSEL,
AND EXCELLENT
IN WORKING
ISAIAH