October 19, 2001

Oct. 16, 1846 marks perhaps the most celebrated page of MGH history: the first successful public demonstration of the use of ether as a surgical anesthetic. Although hundreds of visitors flock each year to the Ether Dome – the site of the groundbreaking procedure – they previously had no way of fully visualizing the actual ground-breaking surgery. That is, until now. An open house – held in the Ether Dome Oct. 16 – featured the unveiling of a life-sized artistic depiction of the events of that same day 155 years earlier, in the form of an oil painting by artists Warren and Lucia Prosperi (pictured, above, in front of the Ether Dome painting).

The 8-by-6-foot painting was commissioned in the spring of 1999 by the chiefs of MGH's clinical services. It was designed as a gift to the hospital from MGH physicians, nurses and friends. The Prosperis spent more than a year researching the project.

In January 2000, MGH participants dressed in period costume gathered in the Ether Dome to reenact the famous surgery. Photographer Bill Buckley captured the reenactment on film, which the Prosperis later used to perfect their work after they began painting in October 2000. The painting will remain in the Ether Dome as a tribute to a single procedure that changed the face of medicine forever.