Crawford Williamson Long

Background

Crawford Long was born on November 1, 1815 in Danielsville, Georgia, United States.

Education

After graduating from Franklin College (later the University of Georgia) in 1835, he began the study of medicine under a preceptor.

He continued his medical studies at Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky, received his M. D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1839, and spent 18 months in work and observation in New York City hospitals.

Career

In 1841 Long started practice at Jefferson, Georgia.

After noting accidental anesthetic effects of sulphuric ether, he decided to try ether as a surgical anesthetic and, on Mar. 30, 1842, successfully removed a cystic tumor from the neck of a patient in the first recorded use of surgical anesthesia. From 1842 to 1846 he performed seven other operations under ether.

In 1846 he read of Dr. William T. G. Morton's administration of ether for an operation performed by Dr. John C. Warren in a Boston hospital.

Morton, independently and without knowledge of Long's discovery, had also established the anesthetic properties of ether.

In 1849 Long published a claim to the discovery of ether in the Southern Medical and Surgical Journal entitled "An Account of the First Use of Sulphuric Ether by Inhalation as an Anesthetic in Surgical Operations, " and this claim became part of a long and bitter contest over priority of discovery.

In 1850 he moved to Athens, Ga. , where he became a leading practitioner and joint proprietor of a wholesale and retail drug store. During the Civil War he was a surgeon in the Confederate hospital in Athens, Ga. He died at Athens, June 16, 1878.

A statue of Long by John Massey Rhind was installed in the National Statuary Hall in the Capitol at Washington on March 30, 1926.

Achievements

• Long is historically credited with the first use of ether as anesthesia.

Connections

In the summer of 1842 he married Mary Caroline Swain.

Long's daughter, Frances Long Taylor, wrote Crawford W. Long and the Discovery of Ether Anesthesia (1928).

Wife:

Mary Caroline Swain

Daughter:

Frances Long Taylor

References

• The First Anesthetic: The Story of Crawford Long