This photograph, taken in 1903, on the occasion of Dr. Charles B. Porter’s last day as a surgeon at the MGH, portrays the second Henry Jacob Bigelow Operating Theatre, located in the 1901 Surgical Building. The old Surgical Building, erected in 1867, had become inadequate for modern surgery and was supplemented by the 1901 structure which provided much improved facilities for sterilizing, etherizing and operating.