William Morton patented ether anaesthesia, never collected a royalty, and died in debt while his rivals died by suicide and in an asylum

On 16 October 1846 the Boston dentist William Morton anaesthetised a patient with ether at Massachusetts General Hospital. Days later Charles Jackson, a chemist whose lectures Morton had attended, claimed the discovery and demanded $500 and 10% of revenue. Morton's patent attorney brought Jackson into the patent. Revenue was to be split 65% to Morton, 25% to the attorney and 10% to Jackson. Morton called his anaesthetic "Letheon". It was soon shown to be ether, and the patent collapsed because ether was not a new compound. He received no royalties. He asked Congress for $100,000 for the Army's use of ether in battle. Jackson protested, and the claim was never decided. Morton's former partner Horace Wells, who claimed his nitrous oxide work came first, became addicted to chloroform and died by suicide in 1848. In 1850 the French Academy of Sciences gave Morton and Jackson equal prizes. In 1861 Jackson published a manual claiming he had employed Morton. In summer 1868 an Atlantic Monthly article credited Jackson. Morton, in debt, went to New York during a heat wave and died of "congestion of the brain", aged 48. Jackson was declared insane in 1873 and died in McLean Asylum in 1880. Boston's Ether Monument of 1868 names neither man.