An analgesic broadside for Horace Wells
Stearns, Henry Putnam (1828 – 1905) and James McManus (1836 – 1920). The discovery of anæsthesia. [s.l. : s.n., c. 1870]. Broadside, 28 cm by 19 cm.
A printed petition to the Connecticut General Assembly to request a grant of "a few thousand dollars" for the construction of a monument commemorating the discovery of anesthesia by Horace Wells (1815 – 1848). The petition chronicles Wells’ experiments with nitrous oxide in December 1844, and credits him with the discovery of modern anaesthesia. The signatories are H. P. Stearns of the Connecticut Medical Society and James McManus, the founder (in 1864) of the Connecticut State Dental Society.
As Charles R. E. Koch and Burton Lee Thorpe note in their history of dental surgery, the petitioners were successful:
In 1870 Drs. J. M. Riggs, James McManus, E. E. Crofoot, and William Blatchley were appointed a committee to present to the General Assembly of Connecticut and the city council of Hartford a proposition to erect a statue in bronze to the memory of Dr. Horace Wells, the discoverer of anaesthesia. The Assembly and the council each gave five thousand dollars, to which were added individual contributions from the other States and cities, that enabled the committee to secure the services of Mr. Truman H. Bartlett, sculptor, of Boston. The statue was placed in Bushnell Park, Hartford, July 22, 1874. (Koch & Thorpe, I:349-50)
Horace Wells Memorial, Bushnell Park, Hartford
Trained in Boston, Horace Wells opened his dental practice in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1836. He attended a demonstration of the effects of nitrous oxide by Gardner Quincy Colton, who administered the drug to an apothecary store clerk and proceeded to physically abuse him for the benefit of the audience. Wells quickly apprehended both the clinical and recreational use of the drug. After further experiments, he introduced nitrous oxide as an anaesthetic in a January, 1845 presentation to medical students at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The presentation did not go well, and Wells closed his practice soon afterwards. His later years were brief and sad: leaving his wife and child he moved to Manhattan to further "experiments" on himself with chloroform and ether, becoming an addict. In 1848 in a drug-addled phrenzy, he threw sulfuric acid at two prostitutes. Sobering up in the Tombs prison, he committed suicide in his cell.
Wells was recognized as the discoverer of modern anaesthesia by the Parisian Medical Society in 1848, the American Dental Association in 1864, and the American Medical Association in 1870. The present broadside, produced by two of Connecticut's most prominent figures (the Hartford Dental Society still administers James McManus Fund) is a product of that posthumous process of recognition.
The broadside is very rare. There are only three other recorded copies, at Harvard's Countway Library, the Connecticut Historical Society, and the Wood Library of the Museum of Anesthesiology.
Selected References
- Fenster, Julie M. (2001). Ether day: the strange tale of America's greatest medical discovery and the haunted men who made it. New York, 2001
- Koch, Charles R. E. and Burton Lee Thorpe. History of dental surgery. Chicago, 1909.
- Wells, Horace (1847). A History of the discovery of the application of nitrous oxide gas, ether, and other vapors to surgical operations. Hartford, 1847
Product tabs
SOLD
Earn 0Reward points
Recommend this product

An analgesic broadside for Horace Wells
Related products
Visionary designs for a Manhattan Project
[VASSILIEVE, Nicholas (1875-1958)] New York City Planning Commission. A Plan for Manhattan Civic Center and related improvements. [New York, 1948]. 29...
view details
$650
View details
$1,250
Thomas Bewick. Poems by Goldsmith and Parnell (1795), with an unrecorded suite of plates.
[Bewick, John and Thomas]. Poems by Goldsmith and Parnell. London: W[illiam] Bulmer, 1795. First edition thus. 4to. xx+76 pp. Some light foxing, else ...
view details
$1,250
View details
$50
[Quakers]. Two photographs of a Hicksite Quaker Church
Creek Quaker Meeting House. Two photographs, each half of a stereoview, depicting the Hicksite meeting house at Clinton Corners in Dutchess County, Ne...
view details
$50
View details
$2,250
Original Photographs from London's New Yiddish Theatre (1946)
[Meisels, Abish (1893 – 1959)] A suite of fifteen original photographs of the New Yiddish Theater in London, each about 6 x 8 in. Each photograph with...
view details
$2,250
View details
$5,000
Winslow Homer. Hardy Lee, His Yacht (1857). His rare comic album
[HOMER, Winslow] Charles Ellery STEDMAN, Mr. Hardy Lee, his yacht: being XXIV sketches on stone, by Chinks. Boston: A. Williams, 1857. [24] leaves : ...
view details
$5,000
View details
The Eucharist in Stereo
$4,750
$4,750
The Eucharist in Stereo
Keith, George A., S.J. (1883 – 1960) The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Meadville, Pa.: Keystone View Co., [ca. 1930]. 100 sequentially-numbered stereov...
view details
$4,750
View details
$2,350
Colonial Recruitment Poster: Doctors in Fiji
NUNNEY, John (1897-1966). Learning to be Doctors in Fiji. British Information Service, [1945]. Printed by Alf Cooke Ltd, Leeds and London. 506 mm x 76...
view details
$2,350
View details
$2,450
Charles C. Dawson's designs for Black Beauty Products
Dawson, Charles C. (1889–1981). A collection of advertising materials for African American beauty products. Chicago: Valmor Products & Co., circa ...
view details
$2,450
View details
$850
Rhode Island minstrel
Banks, Gus [George Ellery Crandall] (1864-1914). Coleman and Heagler Minstrels. Gus Banks, Monologue Artist, Comedian. Cincinnati: Donaldson Litho Co....
view details
$850
View details
Microart by Bruno Munari
$6,500
$6,500
Microart by Bruno Munari
Munari, Bruno (1907–1998). Four original constructions sent as holiday cards, a TLS, and two broadsides from the files of his translator, Maria Cimino...
view details
$6,500
View details
$18,500
Alan Turing and Tony Brooker, Programmers’ Handbook for the Ferranti Mark I computer
Turing, Alan M. (1912 – 1954) and Ralph A. "Tony" Brooker (1925 – 2019). Programmers’ Handbook for the Manchester Electronic Computer Mark II. [Manche...
view details
$18,500
View details
$1,750
Photographs from the Evangelical Association, precursor to the United Methodist Church
[Breyfogel, Seneca P. (1823 – 1884)]. Photo album, c. 1860 to 1880. 5 ½ x 7 ¼ inches, decorative calf binding. The album contains 73 images, six of wh...
view details
$1,750
View details
“A Billion Dollar Industry is in the Making”: The Gametronics conference on video games (1977)
$5,000
$5,000
“A Billion Dollar Industry is in the Making”: The Gametronics conference on video games (1977)
Eimbinder, Jerry, ed. Gametronics: The Electronic Game Designer's Conference. Great Neck, NY: Electronic Engineering Times, 1977. First edition. 223p....
view details
$5,000
View details
$0
The complex cultural politics of a Kilkenny Fair
[Ó Gibealláin, Athanáis O.F.M. (1917-1992)]. Feis Chille Cainnigh. Poster, ca. early 1950s[?]. 45 cm x 50 cm. The poster, once folded has been mounted...
view details
$0
View details
$7,500
The Boston Visionists: Letters of Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue to F. Holland Day
Goodhue, Bertram Grosvenor (1869 – 1924), Archive of ten (10) ANS and ALS to Fred Holland Day, Boston and Cambridge, 1892-1893. 16 pp., both full shee...
view details
$7,500
View details
$1,750
Boston broadside blasting beer: an experimental printing in black and gold
Dod, John (ca. 1549-1645). Sermon on Malt. Boston: [Isaac R.] Butts, [ca. 1840]. Broadside, 24 x 19 cm. Printed in gold ink on paper with a glossy bla...
view details
$1,750
View details
$2,500
Technical Specs for Splitting the Axis: Design for a World War II Propaganda Poster
Blades, John G[reenleaf] W[hittier] (1894 – 1964). Assembly Diagram, circa 1942. Original art, pencil and paper, 16 x 20 inches. Signed, "John G. W. B...
view details
$2,500
View details
$4,500
Manuscript for an unpublished masterwork on American medicinal flora
Havard, Valery (1846–1927). Medical and Economic Botany. Typescript, ca. 1897. 1291 numbered leaves with holograph corrections. Some photocopied title...
view details
$4,500
View details
A most exquisite corpse
Price on Request
A most exquisite corpse
Lise Deharme (1898–1980), Paul Éluard (1895–1952), Georges Hugnet (1906–1974) and Raymond Queneau (1903–1976). Cadavre exquis, [Paris], circa 1925-193...
view details
Price on Request
View details