In 1846, Doctor William T. G. Morton began using ether routinely for dental extractions and felt more confident of its power. He arranged for a demonstration at Harvard University for other doctors to witness. The surgery was for the removal of a mass on a man’s neck. The surgery went well and the patient was very satisfied. From that point onward, news of this new method of surgery spread widely. Oliver Wendell Holmes later coined the term anesthesia to describe the condition brought on by ether. Either continued to be used as an anesthesia well into the 1950s.

For hundreds of years, as a last resort, physicians occasionally attempted blood transfusions, to cure their patients. Sometimes it worked, but most of the time the patient died anyway. It wasn’t until 1901 that blood types were discovered by Karl Landsteiner, an Austrian. Examining blood from various donors in a microscope, he discovered four different groups. He named them ABO types. More research discovered some blood had antigens and others didn’t. Eventually, he discovered fourteen different blood types. For his work, he received the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1930. I do not know why it took twenty-nine years to recevie the Nobel Prize.

Some scholars claim that Abraham Lincoln was engaged to be married to Ann Rutledge. Others claim they were just friends. Ann Rutledge died in 1835 in New Salem, Illinois. She was buried in the Old Concord Cemetery near New Salem. In 1890 some town leaders in Petersburg, Illinois decided that they should go dig up Ann Rutledge’s body and bury it in their own Oakland cemetery. They hired a famous poet of the era to write a poem to be used at her new grave. The reason? The town leaders thought that by having Rutledge’s grave in their town it would become a tourist attraction! The left photo is of Ann Rutledge’s grave near New Salem. The photo on the right is Rutledge’s grave in Petersburg, Illinois.

History tells us that the legendary hero Daniel Boone died at his son’s farm in Defiance, Missouri on September 26, 1820. He was 85 years old. Boone was buried in Marthasville, Missouri next to his wife. In 1845 some town leaders in Frankfort, Kentucky decided that they should go to Missouri and dig Daniel Boone up and bury him in their cemetery. Again, to make their town a tourist site.

When town officals in Marthasville heard of the theft of Boone's body, they made claim that the grave robbers DID NOT have Boone's body but that of another person. The top photo is of Daniel Boone’s grave near Marthasville. The bottom photo is of Boone’s grave in Frankfort, Kentucky.

In the case of Daniel Boone, in 1845, grave robbing was only a misdemeanor and, if convicted, there was only a small fine. However, in Ann Rutledge’s case, grave robbing was a felony and, if convicted, could be sentenced to jail. This makes me wonder why no one was prosecuted for robbing Ann Rutledge’s grave.