The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-07-29
Letters to the Editor.
Use of Ether as Anaesthetic

Obe LII IltucI ds
 To the Editor of The Age-Herald:
 In the article by Dr. George Eavess en- titled "Anaesthetc Simpson" which ap- peared in your last Sundays issue is dis played surprising lack of information touching the history of sulphuric ether as a general anesthetic in surgical opera tions
 Among other things Dr. Eaves says:
 "At first mesmerlsm seemed to offer a method of mitigating pain, and In lS'S Simpson Ca physician of Edinburgh, Scot land) was experimenting herewith, many leaders of his profession visiting his hospital to watch the results Then came, in 1S46 tests of sulphuric ether in labor pains, the original tests of the drug hay ing been apparently in Boston hospital, by Drs Morton and Warner cooperating in the painless excision of tumor from patients neck.
 Dr. Eaves fails even to mention the name of the man who is now universally conceded to have been the real discoverer of the use of sulphuric ether as an an- aesthetic, and the first to employ it sue cessfully in actual practice-Dr. Craw- ford W. Long of our sister state or Georgia Dr. Eaves all but comedies the palm of discovery to Europe, and strange to say he actually credits to Drs. Morton and Warner the very operation in which Dr. Long, in a small town in southern state, nearly 1000 miles from Boston, dem onstrated the success of his discovery.
 The facts are that pr. Long, a native of Georgia. on March 90, 1S42, when only 27 years of age, at Jefferson, Ga. in the presence of Drs P. A. Wilhite. D. I. Long, H. R. P. Long and John s. Groves, and other witnesses, exsected a tumor from the neck of James W. Venable, lad of 20 years, while profoundly an aesthetized with sulphuric ether. The op- eration was entirely painless and suc- cessful in every respect On July 3, 1sa2, with the same results. he repeated the ex- pertinent in the amputation of toe of a negro boy belonging to Mrs Hemp hill of Jackson. Ga, and again on Sep tember g, 1S43 in removing a tumor from the head of Mary Vincent of the same town. The new Encyclopedia Americana says that in the year 1Sf2 he reported the results of his experiments to the Geor- gia State Medical society
 Two years and eight months later, that is to say, in the winter of 1s44-5 Dr. Hor- ace Wells. another name not mentioned by Dr. Eayes) seems to have been the second in point of time to employ the drug in practice. It was not until Septem- Der, 1s4s, four and a half years after Dr. Long had demonstrated his discovery, that Dr. Morton of Boston began his ex- periments Simpsons work was still later. New England writers have striven hard to claim the credit of this great discov cry for Boston. but as far back as 1861 Dr. Charles T. Jackson, one of the earliest practitioners to achieve distinc- ton through this use of ether, generously accorded the glory of discovery to pr. Long The latter's modesty however, and the carelessness. not to say indifference, of US southerners generally concerning our own history, combined with the vocif- erous claims made by and for others, came very nearly losing to him and to the south this great distinction But hap billy now the facts are too well known and it is surprising that a man of Dr. Eaves' learning should have nodded so pronouncedly Respectfully
 o. D. STREET.
 Guntersyille, July D. 1911.