Long, Crawford William (1815–1878)

US surgeon who used ether as an anaesthetic in surgical operations 1842 and is hailed as the discoverer of anaesthesia.

Long, a surgeon practising in Jefferson, Georgia, used ether as a general anaesthetic on 30 March 1842. During the next four years Long again used ether successfully a further four or five times. Since he did not publish his finding until 1849 however, his claim as the first physician to use anaesthesia has been contested. A chemistry student, William Clarke, claimed to have administered ether to a young lady before she had a tooth painlessly extracted by a dentist January 1842.