Crawford Williamson Long

Crawford Williamson Long (born Nov. 1, 1815, Danielsville, Ga., U.S.—died June 16, 1878, Athens, Ga.) was an American physician traditionally considered the first to have used ether as an anesthetic in surgery.

After serving in hospitals in New York City, Long returned to Georgia, where he set up practice in Jefferson. There he observed that persons injured in “ether frolics” (social gatherings of people who were in a playful state of ether-induced intoxication) seemed to suffer no pain, and in 1842 he painlessly removed a tumour from the neck of a patient to whom he had administered ether. He continued to use ether in other cases but did not publish any report of its use until 1849. Three years earlier William Morton, a dental surgeon, had demonstrated the use of ether in a similar type of surgery. Despite Morton’s claims to the discovery and the publicity that attended his demonstration, Long’s priority in actual practice is recognized.