Ideologies of the Anesthetic

Professionalism, Egalitarianism and The Ether Controversy

Bibliographic Data

ID9450839
AuthorsStephanie P Browner (corresponding author)
Year1999
Volume51
Issue1
Pages108-143
Publication date1999-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-0678 • E-ISSN: 1080-6490
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/aq.1999.0011
OpenAlexW2094259691
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited12

Ideologies of the Anesthetic: Professionalism, Egalitarianism and The Ether Controversy * Stephanie Browner (bio) On 16 October 1846, at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, William T. G. Morton, an unknown but enterprising dentist, successfully anesthetized a young man while the renowned surgeon John Collins Warren excised a facial tumor. During the procedure, the patient occasionally "move[d], cr[ied] out, and utter[ed] extraordinary expressions," but later he reported that he had suffered no pain, only an awareness of a "blunt instrument passed roughly across his neck." 1 The next day Morton anesthetized a female patient as another medical luminary, Dr. George Hayward, removed a fatty tumor from her shoulder. Aware of the significance of his success in front of Boston's most elite physicians, Morton immediately devoted himself to applying for a patent, to designing and manufacturing inhalers, to publishing promotional pamphlets, and to distributing a schedule of rates for the right to use his discovery. The discovery of etherization and Morton's entrepeneurial schemes generated a wide variety of texts within only a few years—biographies defending Morton, Congressional inquiries into priority claims, articles about patent rights, pamphlets on the nature of scientific discoveries, and medical treatises about pain. Like America's emerging medical profession, these texts are remarkably unstable: they make logical errors, connect unrelated issues, and speak to different audiences and to disparate concerns at the same time. They bear witness to the uncertain status of allopathic medicine in antebellum America and to the anxiety [End Page 108] felt by regulars (allopathic physicians) who were condemned by alternative healers as elitists seeking a monopoly in the health care market. The leaders of the profession were eager to appeal to the populist spirit of Jacksonian America, and yet they were also determined to claim authority, prestige, and privilege. The ether texts reveal the terms upon which some in the medical profession sought to resolve this tension, to negotiate what Paul Starr has called a "dialectic between professionalism and the nation's democratic culture." 2 Most histories of nineteenth-century American medicine describe a tension between populism and professionalism. Focusing on the 1830s and 1840s, historians cite the repeal of state licensing statutes, the popularity of Thomsonianism and other domestic medical practices, and a significant increase in malpractice suits as evidence of the antistatus sentiments of Jacksonian America. Historians also suggest, however, that the medical profession took important steps towards consolidating its authority in the same years. State medical societies became active, the first national medical convention was convened the same year Morton demonstrated the anesthetic powers of ether, and two years later the American Medical Assocation was founded. These societies sought to regulate medical education and practice, offered assistance with malpractice defense, adopted codes of ethics that often prohibited any collaboration with or referrals to non-members (irregulars), and debated how best to improve the reputation of orthodox physicians. 3 Although historians adopt various attitudes toward the professionalization of American medicine and the disappearance of alternative practices, many suggest that the tension between professionalism and democracy is most clearly visible in battles between regulars and irregulars. More recent studies have noted that the conflict between professionalism and democracy is also evident within the medical practice of regular physicians. In the mid-century emphasis on individualized treatments, historians of medical therapeutics find a valorization of local knowledge and a democratic commitment to the individual, but also a retreat from the republicanism of earlier universalist therapeutics. 4 The ether texts suggest that the tension between professionalism and democracy also marks the rhetorical and narrative strategies of regulars. In the years following the demonstration at Massachusetts General, regulars told Morton's story, responded to his patent application, and proclaimed ether's effectiveness. Henry Bigelow, a young, ambitious [End Page 109] physician, was one of the the most enthusiastic supporters of ether, and his writings reveal the degree to which regulars were engaged with and influenced by the egalitarian ideals of the 1840s. In telling Morton's story, and it has been told repeatedly over the last one hundred and fifty years, Bigelow and others fashion a popular tale of physicians working hand-in-hand with a common dentist, a tale that

Allopathic medicine · Egalitarianism · Health care · Ideology · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Variety (cybernetics · Witness · History · Law · Medical History and Innovations · Medicine

Tools

Open DOI