The scene is a 19th century house; a man knocks on the door for his date. The door opens and there stands the doctor, dressed in a stiff coat, dry and covered in blood. The man is there for surgery and the doctor takes him to his designated operating room. As the doctor places the man in the chair, the man sees dried blood and sharp instruments. He begins to have doubts about the operation and has difficulty coping. Two of the doctor's assistants hold him down while the doctor hits him in the head to knock out his patient. The poor man screams in pain as he wakes up from the doctor starting his operation. Stories like this are nothing more than distant memories of the past. This is all due to a drug called ether that knocks people unconscious so that they are unconscious for the operation and feel no pain. The discovery of ether transformed the medical world and led to multiple forms of anesthesia for many painless surgical procedures, leading to even better results in the future. William Thomas Green Morton was a small-town American dentist in the 1800s. One day, he encountered a patient with a severe toothache, but the patient was afraid of the pain he would encounter. He asked Dr. Charles Jackson for nitrous oxide, but was given ether and told it had the same properties. The dental operation was painless. Morton began testing the ether on his dog, his goldfish, his insects and even himself. At one point, he stunned his dog for so long that he thought he was dead. After finding that the use of ether was effective, he tried it on some of his patients with great success. He was then ready to demonstrate his findings in front of a crowd at the Medical University of Massachusetts. After successfully having a f...... middle of paper ...... Invention of ether anesthesia. NP, 2008. Web. October 1, 2013. “Dr William Morton uses ether for painless surgery for the first time. » Examiner.com. NP, 2013. Web. October 1, 2013. Fradin, Dennis Brindell. “We have conquered pain”: The discovery of anesthesia. New York: Simon & Schuster Children's Division, 1996. “Health” Print. Biography of William Morton. NP, 2013. Web. October 1, 2013. “History of anesthesia”. WordFocuscom. NP, 2013. Web. October 1, 2013. “How anesthesia works”. How things work. NP, 2013. Web. October 01, 2013.Lace, William W. Anesthetics. San Diego: Lucent, 2004. Print. Staff, Mayo Clinic. “General anesthesia”. Mayo Clinic. Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, January 19, 2013. Web. October 1, 2013. "William Morton's History of Painless Surgery by Ether (1846)." History of William Morton, first public demonstration of anesthesia. NP, 2013. Web. October 1. 2013.