Ether Dome
- Architect
- Charles Bulfinch
- City
- Boston, MA
- Collection
- bulfinch’s boston
The Ether Dome is the surgical amphitheater inside the Bulfinch Building at Massachusetts General Hospital, designed by Charles Bulfinch and used as the hospital's operating room from 1821 to 1867. It earned its fame on October 16, 1846 - Ether Day - when dentist William Thomas Green Morton used inhaled ether to anesthetize patient Edward Gilbert Abbott while John Collins Warren, the first dean of Harvard Medical School, removed a tumor from his neck without pain.
the building
"This is no Humbug". When Abbott woke and said the operation "feels as if my neck's been scratched," Warren turned to the watching physicians and declared, "Gentlemen, this is no Humbug" - a direct jab at Horace Wells's failed nitrous oxide demonstration in the same amphitheater the year before, which had ended in cries of "Humbug!" when the patient groaned in pain.
significance
The Ether Dome is a National Historic Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, honored not for its architecture but for the 1846 ether demonstration performed inside it that changed the practice of surgery.
nearby
- First Harrison Gray Otis House
- Old West Church
- Government Service Center
- Charles Sumner House
- African Meeting House
- Peter Bent Brigham Building