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Portrait
Artist: Marguerite S. Pearson
MGH Department Affiliation: Anesthesia
Allen, Freeman, MD
Catalog Number: 71
Oil painting, 39" x 32".
Freeman Allen (1870-1930) was hired as a consulting anesthetist in 1903 by the trustees of the Massachusetts General Hospital. He was the first doctor to receive an appointment at the MGH as an anesthetist and the first physician to completely devote himself to the field of anesthesiology.
In 1912, he was appointed chief of the Anesthesia Service. However, when Dr. Edward P. Richardson was made chief of the newly created Third Surgical Service, he and the General Executive Committee felt that anesthesia was so intimately a part of surgery that it should not be considered its own department. The trustees eliminated the sub-department of anesthesia in 1928, and Dr. Allen's title was changed to Anesthetist. It was not until 1968 that Mass General created an independent Department of Anesthesia.
Dr. Allen’s successors recall him fondly as “Ether” Allen although his early work was in the administration of spinal anesthesia.
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