Effect of the Daguerreotype Process on Morton’s Part in History

Abstract

Because daguerreotype photographs are usually reversed laterally from actuality, images of W.T.G. Morton falsely suggest that he sometimes changed the side of the part in his hair. Because of daguerreotype image reversal, a statue of Apollo in the Ether Dome at the Massachusetts General Hospital appears to have been moved for the 50th anniversary of Ether Day.