Bad Ends · STOP 06 · West End / MGH
The ether room's longest tenant is an Egyptian mummy. His head was once put back on with a broom handle.
On October 16, 1846, under the small dome of Mass General's 1821 building, a dentist held a glass ether inhaler to a young printer while a surgeon cut a tumor from his neck. The same room has held an Egyptian mummy for well over a century. After a 1984 loan, his head was put back on with a broom handle. You can see the dome from the street.
This is stop 6 of Bad Ends. Walk it - any two stops are free.
The plate
Collected on site
Massachusetts General Hospital, off North Grove and Fruit Streets; view from the public way
Directions
His name was read off his coffin in 1960 by the Egyptologist Dows Dunham. Padihershef means 'He whom the god Hershef has given.'
More footnotes on the story card, in the app.
In these collections: Firsts (Contested)
Near Charles/MGH · Near Science Park/West End · Near Bowdoin · Near North Station
Sources (7)
- Boston Dentist Demonstrates Ether: October 16, 1846Mass Moments (Mass Humanities) · n.d.
- Ether DomeWikipedia (lead only; cites MGH and Mass Moments) · accessed 2026-10-10
- About The Ether DomePaul S. Russell, MD Museum of Medical History and Innovation (MGH) · accessed 2026-10-11
- Warren Anatomical Museum CollectionCenter for the History of Medicine, Countway Library, Harvard · accessed 2026-10-11
- From Egypt to the Ether DomeHarvard Magazine · 2014-01
- Boston's Ancient Necropolis Worker with a Broom Handle NeckAtlas Obscura
- The mummified remains of an ancient necropolis workerStrange Remains · 2014-06-23