Crawford Williamson Long (1815-1878), American physician, is credited with the first use of ether as an anesthetic in a surgical procedure.

Crawford Long was born in Danielsville, Ga., on March 1, 1815. At the age of 14 he entered Franklin College in Athens (later the University of Georgia), graduating in 1835. The following year he served as principal of an academy in Danielsville while studying medicine with a doctor in a nearby town.

In 1836 Long entered the Medical Department of Transylvania College at Lexington, Ky., and in 1838 he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, from which he received his medical degree in 1839. He then went to New York, where he studied surgery for 18 months. In 1841 he established a practice in Jefferson, Ga. In the summer of 1842 he married Mary Caroline Swain.

On March 30, 1842, Long used ether as an anesthetic during the removal of a tumor from the neck of James...