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Take Your Pick

March 2023
1min read


The October 1996 “Time Machine” in its account of the birth of anesthesia omits the role of Crawford W. Long, the Georgia surgeon who began using ether as an anesthetic in 1842—four years before Dr. William T. G. Morton—but did not publish his findings until 1849.

When controversy arose over who had discovered the new anesthetic, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, an incurable punster, proposed that a monument be erected on Boston Common bearing the busts of both Long and Morton with the inscription TO ETHER . (Or at least that was the story told in Boston when I was young.)

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Stories published from "April 1997"

Authored by: Frederic D. Schwarz

“Why Harvard Does Not Win”

Authored by: Frederic D. Schwarz

The Teapot Starts to Boil

Authored by: Frederic D. Schwarz

End of the Road

Authored by: J. M. Fenster

All across America there are restaurants that serve up the spirit and conviviality of eras long past

Authored by: Dan Baum

POISONED, RUINED, AND self-cannibalized, this city is still the grandest of all boomtowns

Authored by: Jane Colihan

Amid a hundred mountains and a thousand lakes, a fascinating institution tells the story of America’s engagement with its Eastern wilderness

Authored by: Lisa Blumberg

A LIFELONG FASCINATION with the stories of a famous pioneering family finally drove the writer to South Dakota in hopes of better understanding the prairie life Laura Ingalls Wilder lived there and later gave to the world.

Authored by: Frederic D. Schwarz

Hannah Dustin’s War

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