John Hooker Packard, M.D. Click here to see the copy of the book by Dr. Packard in  this collection Name: John Hooker Packard Death date: May 20, 1907 Place of death: Philadelphia, PA Type of practice: Allopath Journal of the American Medical Association John H. Packard, M.D., one of the most prominent American surgeons of the last part of the 19th Century and a pioneer of modern American surgery, was born in Philadelphia in 1832. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in 1853, he spent 1.5 yr visiting the great Paris hospitals and another 18 months as a resident physician at the Philadelphia's University Hospital. Until his retirement in 1896, he practiced surgery in various Philadelphia hospitals and taught surgery, pathology, and anatomy at the medical school. He served as acting assistant surgeon in two Union Army hospitals during the Civil War. He founded or was an active member of many prestigious medical, surgical, and pathological societies, several of which still exist today. Among Dr. Packard's numerous publications, two popular surgical textbooks stand out: A Manual of Minor Surgery (1863),  adopted by the US Army, and a Handbook of Operative Surgery (1870).  Dr. Packard was the chief editor of the first American edition of Holmes System of Surgery published in 1882.   As an eminent Philadelphia surgeon, Dr. Packard had used chloroform exclusively until 1864.  Like many busy American surgeons outside of Boston, he appreciated the agent's potency, speed of action, and the intense muscular relaxation that it produced. In May 1865, he reported to the Philadelphia College of Physicians that after witnessing several life-threatening or fatal accidents in his own or in his colleagues' practices, he was switching to ether. He had been encouraged to do so by his friend and ether enthusiast,  F.D. Lente of Cold Springs, New York.  Lente had designed an inhaler to induce deep anesthesia safely, rapidly, and with a small amount of ether.  Packard reported his satisfaction with Lente's method in a second communication to the college in May 1866.   Information from Rutkow: History of Medicine, p. 46