Jackson, a physician, geologist and chemist in Boston, wrote this letter to Élie de Beaumont in Paris on November 13, 1846, the day after he and William T. G. Morton jointly received U.S. Patent No. 4848 for Improvement in Surgical Operations, a patent for the use of ether as an anesthetic. Inexplicably Jackson did not mail the letter until December 1. de Beaumont received the letter on December 28; however, he delayed opening the letter until the meeting of the Académie des Sciences on January 18, 1847. This  letter, when published, was Jackson's first published record of his co-discovery, with William T. G. Morton, of surgical anesthesia, in which Jackson discovered the anesthetic properties of ether while Morton first the first to apply it in surgery. Discussion of Jackson's letter by Velpeau, Serres and Roux followed in the volume of the Comptes rendus on pp. 76-79.

Even though the patent for the discovery of ether anesthesia was assigned to Jackson and Morton jointly, Morton, who desired to profit financially from ether anesthesia, politicized the discovery in his attempt to gain compensation from the U.S. government, and discredited Jackson's role. Jackson, who desired credit due rather than money, asserted his claim to share in the discovery in several publications, but in the political controversy that ensued, Morton's political skills and Jackson's seeming nearly total lack thereof, caused Jackson's claims and his reputation to become discredited. Morton's supporters became so convinced of the falseness of Jackson's claims that some later asserted that Jackson died insane, when in reality Jackson suffered a severe stroke which prevented him from writing or speaking from around 1873 onward.