Massachusetts General Hospital, 55 Fruit Street, Boston

On the top floor of the Bulfinch Building, the first and oldest building at Mass General, is the operating theater where doctors and medical students observed surgeries. (To find it, enter the hospital’s main lobby and follow the signs pointing to the Ether Dome. The room is open to the public as long as there isn’t a lecture or meeting going in on inside. Even if a meeting is taking place, you can see historic photos and exhibits around the operating theater and on the building's first floor.) In the early days of medicine, surgery was a brutal and painful affair. But in this room in 1846, physician John Collins Warren, Mass General’s founder, used inhaled ether formulated by local dentist William Morton to anesthetize patient Edward Abbott and remove a tumor from his neck. After the operation, Abbott said only that it “feels as if my neck’s been scratched.” The innovation quickly spread around the world, and led to our current era of painless surgery.

Restrooms are available inside Mass General.

Guest speaker

John Herman, MD, Associate Chief, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital