February 23, 2001

During the past four months, spirits of MGH physicians past have arisen in the Ether Dome — or, more accurately, they have appeared courtesy of painter Warren Prosperi (below). Prosperi is in the midst of a yearlong project to create a realistic mural depicting the world's first demonstration of the use of ether in a surgical procedure, which occurred at the MGH in 1846. The painting, a gift of the hospital's physicians, will hang on the front wall of what was then the operating theater on the top floor of the Bulfinch Building. The mural is expected to be completed in October.