Comparative views of Dr. Daniel Denison Slade:  R.) Frontispiece to Charles R. Eastman's biography of Dr. Slade.  S.) Figure 10 detail from EDD No. 1, age 23-24; what looks like a cleft in the chin is a stylus or probe.  T.) Detail pulled from the internet.

The identity of Figure 10 in Ether Dome Daguerreotype No. 1 is unknown to scholars. Wolfe identified Cabot, presumably Samuel Cabot (1815-1885), but doesn't say how he arrived at that conclusion.(51)  Cabot was the medical officer for the second John Lloyd Stephens expedition to Yucatan, and after receiving instruction from the artist Frederick Catherwood, who preferred the camera lucida, he became the group's photographer. But he is not in the "reenactment" daguerreotype.

There can be no doubt that Figure 10 is Dr. Daniel Denison Slade, as demonstrated by the panel shown here. Distinguishing featural landmarks include a classic dolichocephalic head, narrow face, narrow dorsum nasi, prominent nasolabial and distinguishing naso-jugal groove, less developed cheek bones, prominent brow-line, sharp chin, deep set eyes, protruding ears, wavy hair. Arguably, with Slade in the frame, the reenactment scenario is again busted, because Slade's first exposure to etherization occurred on November 7, 1846, three weeks after the Abbott surgery. On that day he was one of the medical students sitting in the bleachers to witness Dr. Hayward's amputation of the leg of 19-yr-old Alice Mohan, the third historic ether operation at Mass. General. His dramatic memoir of that experience, published in Scribner's Monthly in 1892, is well known to historians. (52 »»)  Slade graduated M. D. in 1848 and was appointed House-surgeon that year.

There is an intriguing but very weak attribution that is possible for Figure 1, instigated by the presence of Daniel Denison Slade within the frame; namely, Samuel's cousin, Francis Parkman (1823-1893). Slade and Francis Parkman were inseparable during their college years at Harvard and in extramural activities as a pair of amateur frontiersmen exploring the pockets of wilderness that remained in New England. Their friendship was lifelong and devoted, lasting until Parkman's death and funeral, for which Slade served as one of the pall bearers. If Figure 1 should one day be identified as Francis Parkman, this would bolster the attribution that the daguerreotype represents Samuel Parkman's reduction of humerus surgery, discussed below.

51.) Wolfe, RJ (2001); Figure 12, page 78.

52.) Slade, DD (1892): Historic moments: The first capital operation under the influence of ether. In: Scribner's Monthly. New York: Scribner's; vol. 12 (October), p. 518-24.