 See behind me the Massachusetts General Hospital? This is the building that houses the ether dome. So follow me now and we're going to go into the ether dome. We're here today at the ether dome to talk about strange sleep. It has been said that perhaps no advance in medical knowledge has alleviated more human suffering than the discovery of anesthesia. And today we stand on the grounds that birthed this discovery. Boston and more specifically Massachusetts General Hospital provided both the characters and conditions that enabled the scientific intrigue as well as the platform for demonstration of the efficacy of a variety of compounds. This history did not occur in a vacuum but rather was the culmination of numerous efforts by practicing clinicians contributing to the arc of discovery. Featured prominently in the development of this discovery of strange sleep were a pair of New England dentists, Taurus Wells and William Thomas Green Martin. A groundbreaking event which preceded Wells and Martin includes the fact that Crawford Long, a surgeon in Georgia, administered sulfuric ether. This occurred in 1842 but his findings went unpublished until 1849. In 1842, Horace Wells took William Martin first as his student in his practice then his partner. Wells had begun his practice in Hartford, Connecticut in 1836. Martin who was born in Massachusetts and trained for dentistry in Baltimore, Maryland married a woman on her father's condition that he quit dentistry and go to medical school which he did do beginning in 1844 but never completed. Although Wells tried to form a practice with Martin the new partnership lasted only a short time. In Hartford, Connecticut in December 1844 Wells attended a demonstration of laughing gas, nitrous oxide. This demonstration was put on by a showman Gardner Quincy Colton who had briefly studied medicine. Wells noticed one of the volunteers inhaling the gas had entered his leg during the demonstration and the man seemed unaware that he had suffered an injury. The very next day Wells asked Colton to come to his office and administer nitrous oxide to him while Wells associate John Riggs extracted one of Wells' teeth. Wells felt not as much of a prick of pain and believed that he Colton and Riggs had invented painless dentistry. After Colton taught Wells how to administer the gas Wells performed a dozen painless procedures over the next several weeks. Excited and increasingly encouraged with the success of each procedure Wells decided to demonstrate painless dentistry in Boston. This demonstration took place in June 1845 at the Massachusetts General Hospital before a group of Harvard medical students. During the demonstration the patient moaned as if in pain and the audience jeered and drove Wells from the lecture hall even though the patient attempted to explain that in fact he was not in pain. Despite the setback Wells continued nitrous oxide in his practice and fully shared his discovery with area dentist. The event in Boston temporarily deterred Wells from further attempts to publicize his successes nationally. Meanwhile Martin in 1846 appeared in this ether dome in Boston to demonstrate his compound. However he did not identify his anesthetic as being ether. Instead he called it lethion and applied for a patent for his substance. The ether dome was the site of the first public demonstration of the use of inhaled ether as a surgical anesthetic. The ether dome as it came to be called was an active surgical operating amphitheater in the Bullfinch building at Massachusetts General Hospital. This ether dome served as the hospital's operating room from its opening in 1821 until 1867. This demonstration took place on October 16, 1846 thereafter known as Ether Day. The Ether Day event occurred when William Thomas Green Martin a local dentist used ether to anesthetize the patient for John Collins Warner the first dean of Harvard Medical School. Dr. Warner painlessly removed part of a vascular tumor from his patient's neck and when the patient regained consciousness he reported that it feels as if my neck has been scratched. Warner then turned to the medical audience and announced gentlemen this is no humbug. Thereafter Martin quickly established a monopoly on painless dentistry in Boston. In contrast to Wells who's made efforts to share his knowledge Martin repeatedly tried to make a profit for his discovery but his attempts to claim sole discovery of anesthesia were denied. Both Horace Wells and Charles Jackson, Charles Jackson Martin's chemistry teacher at Harvard who had originally introduced Martin to ether challenged Martin's claim. As for Martin the promotion of his questionable claim to have been the discoverer of anesthesia became an obsession for the rest of his life and he would die a tragic and tarnished figure. Wells for his part sought further to strengthen his position by publishing a document entitled history of the discovery of the application of nitrous oxide in other vapors to surgical operation. He did this in 1847. In 1864 nearly 20 years later the American Dental Association followed by the American Medical Association in 1870 recognized Horace Wells as the discoverer of anesthesia. A universally accepted definition of a discoverer is one who first uses and then brings the facts and knowledge to the world and Horace Wells was the only inventor who completely fulfilled this definition. Although claims to singular discovery reinforce society's fascination with individual genius the astute historians of science note that it is not unusual for innovation to occur at a moment when several individuals sometimes with knowledge of each other's efforts and sometimes without such knowledge are simultaneously working along similar lines of effort. Discovery they emphasize is not typically an event but rather a process. Prior to 1846 little surgery was performed because the pain was intolerable. The brutality of this process extended to those who extracted teeth. Only opiates and alcohol combined with physical restraint. Physical restraint occasionally bordering on near strangulation. These were seen to be available for the patient. Clearly there was no anesthesia as we know it today. Thanks to America's pioneers in anesthesia today we experienced the highest level of comfort and safety when facing any type of surgery. It has been said that dentistry's greatest gift to medicine and even to mankind is the discovery and development of inhalation anesthesia. Paradoxically local anesthesia used ubiquitously in dentistry was introduced by a physician Dr. John Stuart Halstead. Dr. Halstead the first professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Dr. Halstead first demonstrated regional anesthesia delivering a mandibular block injection in 1884. In 1922 Dr. Halstead was honored to be the originator of regional anesthesia. There exists a subtle irony in the fact that a physician gave us dental local anesthesia and a dentist gave us general anesthesia. These scientific discoveries and their champions changed the operating theater in ways that were previously unimaginable. They risked not only their reputations but in many cases their lives in pursuit of this knowledge. From the late 19th century to the present the field of anesthesiology has continued to evolve. Refinements in anesthetic agents and armamentaria in the enhanced and rigorous education of those who deliver anesthesia have made the routine delivery of surgery possible. These refinements in anesthesia combined with minimally invasive surgical techniques will continue to reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with surgery. Clearly history owes a great deal to those who championed the efforts to make this strange sleep possible.