William James Morton (July 3, 1845 – March 26, 1920) was a

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

, an authority in

electrotherapeutics Electrotherapeutics is a general term for the use of electricity in therapeutics, i.e. in the alleviation and cure of disease. It is used as a treatment, like electroconvulsive therapy and TENS. In the technical working of medical electrolysis t ...

. During his career he was convicted for mail fraud, for which conviction he received a presidential pardon after serving some months in jail.

Biography

William J. Morton was born in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

on July 3, 1845. He was a son of

William T. G. Morton William Thomas Green Morton (August 9, 1819 – July 15, 1868) was an American dentist and physician who first publicly demonstrated the use of inhaled ether as a surgical anesthetic in 1846. The promotion of his questionable claim to have been t ...

, whose name is connected with the first anaesthetic use of ether. He was educated at the

Boston Latin School The Boston Latin School is a public exam school in Boston, Massachusetts. It was established on April 23, 1635, making it both the oldest public school in the British America and the oldest existing school in the United States. Its curriculum f ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

and in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. On his graduation there, in 1872, his thesis on "Anaesthetics" gained him the Boylston Prize. He practised medicine at

Bar Harbor, Maine Bar Harbor is a resort town on Mount Desert Island in Hancock County, Maine, United States. As of the 2020 census, its population is 5,089. During the summer and fall seasons, it is a popular tourist destination and, until a catastrophic fire ...

, and in Boston. He went to

Kimberley, South Africa Kimberley is the capital and largest city of the Northern Cape province of South Africa. It is located approximately 110 km east of the confluence of the Vaal and Orange Rivers. The city has considerable historical significance due to its ...

, where, besides practising his profession, he engaged in diamond mining. Settling in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, he became editor of the ''

Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease ''The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease'' is a peer-reviewed medical journal on psychopathology. It was established in 1874 as the ''Chicago Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease''. "Chicago" was dropped from the title beginning in 1876. Articl ...

''. He married Elizabeth Campbell Lee in 1880. From 1882 to 1885, he was adjunct professor of nervous diseases at the

New York Post-Graduate Medical School NYU Grossman School of Medicine is a medical school of New York University, a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1841 and is one of two medical schools of the university, with the other being the Long Island School of ...

, served as neurologist to the New York Infant Asylum, 1887–90, and was afterward professor of nervous diseases and electrotherapeutics at the New York Post-Graduate School. As an authority in electrotherapeutics he won wide recognition, and by his mechanical device for establishing the "static induced current" of electricity – the "Morton current" of the scientific world – supplied a means for producing the

x-ray An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nb ...

, a service of great practical value to medicine and surgery. Indicted in January 1912, in association with

Julian Hawthorne Julian Hawthorne (June 22, 1846 – July 14, 1934) was an American writer and journalist, the son of novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne and Sophia Hawthorne, Sophia Peabody. He wrote numerous poems, novels, short stories, mysteries and detective f ...

and others, on a charge of fraudulent use of the mails in the promotion of bogus mining companies, conviction followed nearly a year after. He was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment, but was released in October 1913, pardoned by the president and reinstated in his profession. He died in

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

on March 26, 1920, and was interred at

Mount Auburn Cemetery Mount Auburn Cemetery is the first rural, or garden, cemetery in the United States, located on the line between Cambridge and Watertown in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, west of Boston. It is the burial site of many prominent Boston Brah ...

Notes

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Morton, William James 1845 births 1920 deaths Harvard University alumni Boston Latin School alumni Physicians from Maine American inventors Burials at Mount Auburn Cemetery The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease editors