Jackson, Charles Thomas

Jackson, Charles Thomas

(born June 21, 1805, Plymouth, Mass., U.S.—died Aug. 28, 1880, Somerville, Mass.) U.S. physician, chemist, geologist, and mineralogist. He graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1829. Known for his contentiousness and litigiousness, he took credit for the first demonstration of surgical anesthesia with ether by a dental surgeon he had advised on it, and he claimed to have told Samuel F.B. Morse the basic principles of the telegraph. He worked many years as a geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey.

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Jackson, Charles Thomas (1805–80) chemist; born in Plymouth, Mass. After graduating from Harvard Medical School, he continued his studies in Paris, then returned to Boston and established the first lab in analytical chemistry to accept students (1836). Of wide-ranging interests—he did major geological surveys of New England—he became increasingly paranoid. In 1832 he had suggested to Samuel F. B. Morse the idea of an electric telegraph and in 1844 he had suggested to William Morton the use of ether as an anaesthetic; when both men were hailed as the discoverers of the true functional applications of these concepts, Jackson devoted himself to his claims to priority. By 1873 he had evidently become insane and he spent his final years in a mental institution.