Wells, Jackson and Morton each claimed credit for the innovation, with Morton emerging as victor after petitioning U.S. Congress to be recognized as the rightful “inventor.” Jackson and Morton tangled in a bitter legal dispute and pamphleteering war that lasted 20 years. Jackson died at McLean Asylum in Belmont, Mass. In 1868 Morton read a newspaper item asserting that Jackson deserved the lion’s share of credit. He became feverish, threw himself into a pond in New York’s Central Park and died, probably from a stroke, soon thereafter.
Wells left the practice of dentistry and his family and went to New York, where he was arrested for throwing acid on sex workers. He killed himself in jail by slashing an artery after taking chloroform.
Meanwhile a small-town Georgia doctor named Crawford Long had performed operations using ether as early as 1842, but didn’t publish his results until 1849, so he received no credit for the innovation.
Following the historic operation at MGH, Gilbert Abbott was discharged on December 7, 1846. He married in 1850, fathered two children and enjoyed a successful career. He died of consumption (tuberculosis) in 1855 at age 30.