In the consideration of this subject we come upon a man of rare
character--rare even, in his profession. Dr. John C. Warren was the
perfect type of an Anglo-Saxon surgeon. His courage and dexterity were
fully equalled by his kindness and sympathy for the patient. Cool and
collected in the most trying emergencies, it has been said of him that he
never performed a capital operation without feeling a pain in his heart;
and the evidence of this was marked upon his face, so that it is even
visible in the photographs of him. He deserved to have his portrait
painted by Rubens. In 1847 Dr. Mason Warren published a review of
etherization, in which he makes this important statement:
"In the autumn of 1846 Dr. W. T. G. Morton, a dentist in Boston, a person
of great ingenuity, patience, and pertinacity of purpose, called on me
several times to show some of his inventions. At that time I introduced
him to Dr. John C. Warren. Shortly after, in October, I learned from
Doctor Warren that Doctor Morton had visited him and informed him that he
was in possession of or had discovered a means of preventing pain, which
he had proved in dental operations, and wished Doctor Warren to give him
an opportunity in a surgical operation. After some questions on the
subject in regard to its action and the safety of it, Doctor Warren
promised that he would do so.
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