Crawford Long

William T.G. Morton

Horace Wells

Who Was First?

In March 1842, Dr. Crawford Long used ether inhalation to anesthetize James Venable for the removal of several sebaceous cysts on his neck. In December 1844, Horace Wells used nitrous oxide to block pain from dental extractions. On October 16, 1846, William Thomas Green Morton used ether to anesthetize Gilbert Abbott for the removal of a submandibular tumor at the Massachusetts General Hospital. The answer to this question of who discovered surgical anesthesia seems obvious, yet Long’s work was not published until several years after Morton’s public demonstration. Wells tried to display nitrous oxide anesthesia for dental extractions at the Massachusetts General Hospital, failed, and was publicly humiliated. To complicate matters even further, Wells and Morton shared a dental practice during the time nitrous oxide anesthesia was used as an anesthetic. So, the question of who was first remains “an enigma wrapped in mystery.”

This video documentary depicts the
events surrounding the ether con-
troversy and the introduction of
anesthesia in Boston in 1846.
Video Clip
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2007: A Busy Year for the Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology