On 16 October 1846 dentist William Morton administered ether anesthesia to surgical patient Edward Gilbert Abbot in the operating theater of the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. In attendance at this first successful public demonstration of anesthesia were surgeon John Collins Warren, other physicians, and several medical students. While the idea of using anesthetics to relieve pain during surgery quickly spread around the world, for the next five decades the administration of anesthetics was mostly handled either by medical students or physicians poorly trained in the procedure. Most physicians simply were not interested in serving as anesthetists. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, a few physicians were suggesting in the medical literature that anesthetics should be administered by medical personnel specifically trained to do-so.

In America Alice Magaw, a nurse, was one of the first individuals to administer anesthetics fulltime. Magaw went to...