William Thomas Green Morton, American dentist, who claimed to be the discoverer of the anesthetic use of ether, was born in Charleston, Massachusetts in 1819. He got his education at the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery and Harvard Medical School.

In 1842-1843 he shared a business with the American dentist Horance Wells. In 1844 Morton met and worked with an American scientist, Charles Thomas Jackson. Morton found out about Jackson's experiments with sulfuric ether as an anesthetic and conducted many tests. In 1846 he publicly used ether first when taking out a tooth and then later for removing a neck tumor. He called the anesthetic LETHEON, he and Jackson got a patent for it in 1846, but the patent was invalid after Morton and Jackson argued each other's claims of ownership.

For the the rest of his life, Morton argued that Jackson's claims an other claims made by Wells and the American surgeon Crawford Williamson Long, who had first used ether as an anesthetic in 1842. Morton finally DIED in 1868.