A Newly Discovered Manuscript of Charles T. Jackson, MD: “History of the Patenting of the Application of Sulphuric Ether for the Production of Insensibility”

In 2016, the Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology, Schaumburg, IL, acquired an unpublished 11-page manuscript written by Charles Thomas Jackson, MD, (1805-1880). The undated manuscript, now fully transcribed, provides Jackson's perspective of the first 6 weeks of the ether discovery, from early October 1846 to mid-November 1846. It chronicles Jackson's observations and discussions pertaining to United States Patent No. 4848, granted to him and William Thomas Green Morton, MD, (1819-1868). Jackson's manuscript did not yield new information on the discovery of surgical etherization or the subsequent dispute between him and Morton. The manuscript may, nevertheless, be one of the earliest documents on etherization known to have been written by Jackson.