Neck neck! Who’s there?
The inscription refers to the most famous public demonstration of ether as an anesthetic during surgery. On October 16th, 1846 a crowd of doctors and students gathered in the surgical amphitheater at Massachusetts General Hospital to watch as a dentist named William T.G. Morton instructed a patient to inhale the fumes from an ether-soaked sponge. After the patient was sufficiently sedated, a surgeon removed a tumor from his neck. When the patient awoke from his ether-induced stupor, the surgeon asked how he felt, to which he reportedly replied, “feels as if my neck’s been scratched.”
installation { Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset, Interstage, 2005 | wax figure, plaster body, iron, aluminium, wood | 300 x 250 x 851 cm }
