Charles T. Jackson graduated at Harvard Medical College in 1829. after having led an already eventful career as geologist and mineralogist. He spent several years abroad, meeting many of the most distinguished men upon the Continent and displaying, in many ways, a great deal of scientific talent and mechanical ingenuity. In 1835 he opened, in Boston, the first laboratory for teaching analytical chemistry in the United States. A year later he was made State Geologist of Maine, and spent three years in this capacity. He also did a great deal of work upon the State geological surveys of Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and New York, while he was the first to call attention to the mineral resources of the southern shore of Lake Superior, where, in 1845. he opened up copper{311} and iron mines. In 1846 and 1847 he became deeply interested in the subject and discovery of anaesthesia, and after the successful introduction of ether by Morton, in the Massachusetts General Hospital, set up the claim that it was he who had suggested it to Morton. In a pamphlet, published a little later, he states: "In the year 1837 I discovered that ether-vapor was superior to alcohol as a remedy for the strangling and toxic effects of chlorine-gas after inhalations for that purpose in my laboratory." He then relates how he administered the vapor to himself for the relief of the irritation produced by inhaling chlorine, and describes his sensations upon going to sleep and awakening. This claim in its entirety was a great surprise to both Morton and Wells, and led to a most unseemly discussion, which degenerated into a downright professional fight. After the death of Wells, Jackson and Morton both claimed that nitrous-oxide gas was not an anaesthetic, and that insensibility to pain could not be produced by it, in consequence of which the use of the gas was quite discontinued. It became, then, simply a question of priority as to the administration of ether for relief of pain during surgical operations. Wells being dead, this brought Long into the conflict. Jackson visited Europe again, and presented his claim before numerous societies in such a way as to be recognized abroad as the discoverer of anaesthesia. The relative merits of the whole controversy appear to have been pretty well summed up in a memorial sent to the Senate and House of Representatives by several hundred members of the Massachusetts Medical Society, which contains the following paragraph:--"The undersigned hereby testify to your honorable bodies that, in their opinion, William T. G. Morton _first proved_ to the world that ether would produce insensibility to the pain of surgical operations, and that it could be used with safety. In their opinion, his fellow-men owe a debt to him for this knowledge."