LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

Immediately the contest against Doctor: Morton
became bitter and personal. As a result, the bil]
to give him one hundred thousand dollars, which
had been passed by the House, was lost in the
Senate.

This was a bitter disappointment, a most bitter
experience. That any person could lay claim to
this discovery, which he had worked out with al-
most infinite labor, hazarding his life and reputa-

tion with fearlessness, or say, as did one physician, °

“TJ told it to him,” seemed to Doctor Morton un-
explainable, He had spent all he had earned and
more in his work, was deeply in debt; and now,
when only twenty-nine, he became ill from nervous
prostration.

He could not ‘solve the problem — while lavish
sums were spent on every new invention for slaugh-
ter, there was not a penny for the man who by his
discovery had saved thousands of. lives, and pre-
vented incalculable suffering.

When partially restored to health, friends fur-
nished the means fora second petition to Congress.
Daniel Webster, Charles Sumner, Rufus Choate,
Governor Marcus Morton, were among his warm
supporters, but while the Legislators said by a de-
cisive report, ‘Doctor Morton is entitled to the
merit of the discovery,” in the rush of the closing
session, no appropriation was made.

Once more, well, cheerful and hopeful, sustained
by his devoted wife and friends, though the new
claimants published their claims both at home and
abroad, Doctor Morton, ten years later, with an
immense amount of testimony from the highest in
the land, made his third application to Congress.
It would seem that there could be little doubt about
the sequel now, since two select committees of the
House of Representatives had reported in his favor;
the Military and Naval committees were on his side;
and the Trustees of the Massachusetts General Hos-
pital, with one hundred of the leading men of Bos-
ton, had sent him one thousand dollars, with their
autographs, in a silver casket, with the words :

‘“‘In honor of the Ether Discovery, September 30,
1846. He has become poorinacause which
has made the world his debtor.”

But no sooner was the subject broached in Con-
gress, than different members argued the claims of
their constituents ; one branch of the Government
passed a bill only to have it rejected in the other,
until everybody was worn out with the discussion,
and the matter was allowed to drop unheeded.
Doctor Morton went home dispirited, and was at-
tacked with asevere illness. For eight long years,
with loss of business and failing health, he had

‘ fought this battle for his rights in vain.

There had been one joy in all this disappeint-
ment and depression and defeat; one bright spot
in the darkness; at Etherton cottage, Wellesley,
Mass., where lived his wife and four pretty children,
he had always come home to rest and peace and love

~ were all using this wonderful blessing.

311

and perfect trust and sympathy. Close to his home
was that of his tenderly loved mother, whom he
visited regularly every night after his return from
business in the city ; and there he could forget for
the time the indifference, the heartlessness, and
the selfishness of the world. But now misfortune
came even to Etherton. The home with its fine
library, its perfect collection of surgical instruments
which he had spent years in gathering, had to be
mortgaged and its treasures sold.

Feeling how sadly his country had wronged and
neglected him, such noble men as Doctors Bigelow,
Bowditch and Holmes, Robert C. Winthrop and
Longfellow, and leading physicians in every city,
started a Morton Testimonial, which by generous
contributions should show how deeply indebted the
whole world really was to this one man. All gave
heartily; but the Civil War soon absorbed the
thought of the country and prevented the raising
of a large amount.

Fourteen years had now gone by since his dis-
covery of ether. Doctor Morton, at the wish of
the Government, had hastened to our battle-fields,
and sometimes after a single battle had given ether
or chloroform to two thousand wounded men, be-
fore the surgical operations were performed. Atthe
Wilderness and Spottsylvania Court House, with
General Grant, where twenty thousand were
wounded, he had given anesthetics, at the rate of
three minutes to the man, without a single failure.
The hospitals of London, Paris, Vienna and Berlin
One can
but pause again and again and reflect upon this
instance of national ingratitude.

One year after Doctor Morton discovered the
use of ether in destroying pain, Doctor Simpson
of England had brought out another agent, chloro-
form, which, though valuable, is dangerous, and its
use forbidden in most hospitals. For this England,
proud of the discovery, knighted him, and at his
death buried him in Westminster Abbey, For
Doctor Morton —who discovered an inhalent
safe as well as powerful and in use nearly the
world over before chloroform was discovered,
what has his country done? Absolutely nothing,
save to leave his family in want, and himself unre-
warded. Once more, wounded soldiers, Generals,
Doctors, College Presidents and Medical Societies
united to ask Congress for an appropriation of
two hundred thousand dollars for Doctor Morton.
Doctor Willard Parker of New York said, “He
has laid the civilized world under an infinite obli-
gation, and exhausted his means by so doing; ”
President Chadbourne of Williams College said,
“In my judgment he has been grossly wronged in
the preposterous claims of others, and in the long
neglect of the American people to make him some
compensation for the honor he has conferred upon
us.” The old opposition was at work, however,
and Congress did nothing.