American dentist William Thomas Green Morton (1819-1968) is often considered the first to discover general anesthesia and to pioneer its applications in surgery.
However, four and a half years before Morton’s breakthrough, a young man from the Southern states named Crawford Williamson Long (1815-1878) became the first physician to operate with no pain, performing minor surgical and obstetric procedures under anesthesia using diethyl (sulfuric) ether.
Long’s legacy is a testament to the silent, but significant role that Black Americans occupied in the history of medicine.
Table of Contents
The "Father of Anesthesiology" Crawford W. Long
On March 30, 1842, at age 27, Long performed his first ether surgery for a friend, to remove a neck tumor.
In July of 1842, his second anesthesia patient was the son of an enslaved man who needed to have two toes amputated.
Crawford W. Long, shortly before his death in 1878
From “The Discovery of Anaesthesia”
Virginia Medical Monthly, v. 4 (May 1877)
(Source: Countway Library of Medicine)
Long tried ether during this experiment to test whether or not ether was truly what caused the effects of anesthesia.
He noted:
The boy had a disease of a toe, which rendered its amputation necessary, and the operation was performed without the boy evincing the least sign of pain.
In another version of the account, revealed to us through the research of Brazilian anesthesiologist Almiro dos Reis Júnior, the boy had suffered a burn serious enough to warrant the amputation of two toes on one foot.
Here is a description of the procedure:
The boy agreed in being submitted to anesthesia. Long put him to sleep and amputated one toe with no patient reaction.
Incredibly as it may seem, to prove the action of ether, he amputated the second toe without anesthesia. This time the boy has desperately shouted and thrashed about so violently that Long was forced to restrain him to finish the procedure; only then he was convinced that ether was responsible for the lack of sensitivity and not the mesmerian forces he thought he had.
Long actually described this in a later report as being his third operation, his second one being the removal of an additional tumor from his first patient the previous month.
Long also claimed that a letter from the boy’s master, a Mrs. Hemphill of Jackson county, Georgia, was ‘sufficient‘ to prove that he did not recall experiencing any pain from the procedure.
His fourth operation was conducted on September 9, 1843, ‘in the extirpation of a tumor from the head of Mary Vincent of Jackson county, Ga.‘
A fifth operation was carried out on January 8, 1845, ‘in the amputation of the finger of a Negro boy belonging to Ralph Bailey of Jackson county, Ga.‘
Here is the sworn testimony of a witness to that operation:
I, Milton Bailey, certify that I was present in the early part of the year 1845 and witnessed Dr. C. W. Long cut off two fingers of a Negro boy, Isom, the property of my father, Ralph Bailey, Sr.
Before cutting off one finger, he gave the boy, Isom, sulphuric ether to inhale from a towel and while under the effects of the ether, Dr. Long cut off the finger, without the boy showing the least sign of pain or suffering during the operation.
There was no attempt made by Dr. Long to conceal the nature of the medicine inhaled, but he informed those present what the article was.
From what Dr. Long said at the time and immediately before the operation was performed and from my previous knowledge of the effects of ether when inhaled, I know it was sulphuric ether inhaled by the boy, Isom. I also heard the boy say after the operation that he felt no pain at the time the finger was taken off.
(Signed) Milton Bailey.
Sworn to and subscribed before me this 2d day of March, 1854.N. H. Pendergrass, J. P. XI Georgia, Clarke County.
Long, however, noted:
The boy was etherized during one amputation, and not during the other; he suffered from one operation [the latter], and was insensible during the other.
Long had achieved his goal.
He was now completely convinced of ether’s efficacy.
After fully satisfying myself of the power of ether to produce anaesthesia [sic], I was desirous of administering it in a severer surgical operation than any I had performed.
Though he faced much criticism, Dr. Long continued his experiments.
He administered ether to his wife during childbirths and, in so doing, Long became a pioneer of obstetric analgesia.
The Anatomy of a Popular Portrait of Long
Physician Crawford W. Long (right) simulates a surgical procedure under ether
c. 1855
(Source: P. I. Nixon Medical Historical Library via the Brazilian Journal of Anesthesiology)
This rare portrait by an unknown photographer was discovered by an antiques tradesman in Gainesville, Georgia, who bought it from one of Long’s descendants and sold it to a rare books dealer in Athens, Georgia.
It was rediscovered over 30 years ago at a book fair in Austin, Texas, and was acquired by Dr. Scott Smith, then an anesthesiology resident. Smith donated this find to the P. I. Nixon Medical Historical Library at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. This was done in honor of Dr. Maurice S. Albin who served as professor of anesthesiology and neurosurgery at the Health Science Center and director of neuroanesthesiology at the hospital where Smith was in training.
Dated to 1855, the photo presents a simulation of a surgical procedure on a patient under ether anesthesia.
Dr. Júnior, a specialist who works in the anesthesia department at Oswaldo Cruz German Hospital, in São Paulo, Brazil continues with more details:
It is an important document for the history of Medicine because it seems to be the only picture of Long; his other images are all oil paintings [there is also the black and white engraving].
Strong hints, since there are no conclusive evidences, indicate that is really Crawford W. Long, between 39 and 45 years of age, who appears getting ready to amputate the leg of a barefoot patient, with tourniquet applied above the knee and on the mid region of the leg and, we can [already] imagine, placed on a wooden crate or box; Long is with an assistant who takes care of surgical instruments and someone who administers ether and monitors the patient’s pulse.
For his professional medical posture and high physical resemblance with his family, the young “anesthetist” seems to be Robert, also a physician and Long’s brother.
Moreover, the wooden box acting as operating table contains the following words, probably related to Long’s name and address: ‘Williamson, Georgia and Temperane,’ which in fact should be Temperance, Georgia, a town close to Athens, to a railroad terminal, Union Point, and to Crawfordsville.
The graphic scene – the intensity of Long’s stare, the decisiveness in his grip, and the way Robert smothers the face of the lifeless man – is suggestive of an ulterior prejudice against his model patient.
It calls us to question: in this time of overt racism, what did this aspiring doctor think of his Black patients?
Long served in the Confederate army’s sanitation service during the American Civil War. In his college days, he had become close friends with the future vice-president of the rebel nation, Alexander Hamilton Stephens, and they were college roommates.
Stephens was known to be a staunch defender of ‘African slavery‘ and White Supremacy, though he walked back much of his statements while in prison for high treason.
Pharmacist Joseph Jacobs, in his Personal Recollections of Dr. Crawford W. Long (1919) wrote the following on Long’s relations with Black people:
As to the “Slavery Question” Dr. Long was a “Whig,” and followed the teachings of Henry Clay.
While he owned a few Negro domestic servants, he [only] ever treated them as wards of his care and benevolence, and in his staunch Methodist view, thought that the Providence of God had permitted slavery in order to Christianize the African race.
He believed with Mr. Clay that such free Negroes as wished to settle in Liberia, should be aided in doing so, and that the great body of the slaves should gradually be emancipated under regulations that would be beneficial to them and equitable to their owners under the Constitution of the United States, on the destruction of property rights, honestly acquired.
The Significance of the Ether Discovery
In 1877, ex-president of the American Medical Association (AMA), Dr. J. Marion Sims (1813-1883), published an article in the Virginia Medical Monthly, later reprinted as a pamphlet, on the “History of the Discovery of Anesthesia.”
In it, Sims praised Long for his contributions to medical science and called for a recognition of Long as the proper “Discoverer of Anaesthesia.”
He begins…
Long before the days of Horace Wells [(1815-1848)] and of Morton and Charles Thomas Jackson [(1805-1880)], we were on the eve of the discovery of anaesthesia.
In 1790, Priestley discovered nitrous oxide gas. In 1799, Sir Humphrey Davy [(1778-1829)] experimented with it, and in 1800, he published his Researches, Chemical and Philosophical, chiefly concerning Nitrous Oxide Gas and its Respiration, in which he says:
“As nitrous oxide, in its extensive operations, appears capable of destroying physical pain, it may probably be used with advantage during surgical operations, in which no great effusion of blood takes place.”
Sir Humphrey Davy had inhaled the gas repeatedly for headache and other painful affections, and finding relief for the time, he suggested its use as an anaesthetic in surgery; and if he had been a surgeon, there is no doubt he would have used it as such. But his great idea was lost to the world for more than forty years.
There are four claimants for the honor of the discovery of anaesthesia, viz: Crawford W. Long, of Athens, Georgia; Horace Wells, of Hartford, Ct.; W. T. G. Morton and Charles T. Jackson, of Boston.
I propose to give a plain statement of facts bearing on the question, leaving the reader to draw his own conclusions.
Frederick Sertürner, First of the Alkaloid Chemists, Synthesizing Morphine
1950s
Artist: Robert Thom
(Source: The Hanneman Archive)
For Sims, the question was settled. After learning the facts just a year prior from a Dr. Philip A. Wilhite, who assisted Long in his surgery on his friend James M. Venable in Jefferson, Georgia, Sims was convinced that the title belonged to Long.
The claims of Long have never been fairly stated in connection with those who came after him. I am ashamed to say I was wholly ignorant of them until a very recent day, and I believe that the great mass of the profession are in the same category with me.
Wilhite stated that ‘the boys and girls in his neighborhood near Athens, Georgia, were in the constant habit‘ of inhaling ether for a quick high and that ‘there was hardly ever a gathering of young people that did not wind up with an ether frolic.’
Some would laugh, some cry, some fight, and some dance, just as when nitrous oxide gas is inhaled.
Mr. Venable, past 21 at the time of his operation, confirmed the local hysteria about the “exhilarating powers” of ether among the youth of ‘Jefferson and the adjoining county,’ claiming to have been an ether enthusiast himself.
I…was very fond of its use.
Wilhite recalled one of the “quiltings” where these “frolics” took place. Unbeknownst to the young Wilhite, he would be the first to attest to the sedating effects of ether and the first person to experience this phenomenon would be an unsuspecting Black teenager.
It was in the Fall of 1839. Wilhite was a romping boy of seventeen. All the boys and all the girls had inhaled the ether, some of them more than once.
They were looking around for new subjects for it, when Wilhite saw a Negro boy at the door, who seemed to be enjoying the sport. Wilhite invited him to come in and try the ether. He refused. Other young men then insisted on his taking it. He refused again in a most positive manner; whereupon some of the thoughtless young men caught hold of the boy, and called Wilhite to give him the ether. He struggled violently, but they threw him down and held him there while Wilhite poured out some ether on a handkerchief, and pressed it firmly over his mouth and nose. He fought furiously. They persisted, thinking it was great fun. After a long struggle, the boy became quiet and unresisting. The young men then let him alone. They were greatly surprised that he did not get up immediately and say or do some foolish thing for them to laugh at. He lay quietly, and with stertorous breathing. They tried to arouse him, but could not. They then became greatly alarmed, and sent one of their number on horseback for Dr. Sydney Reese, at Athens, five miles distant.
The messenger rode with all possible speed. He fortunately found Dr. Reese at home, who lost no time in going to Mr. Ware’s. On his arrival, he found the Negro lying on his back still soundly asleep. The young ladies had left the frightful scene. Young Wilhite, and his principal accomplice, thinking that they had in mere play murdered a fellow being, were so much alarmed, that they contemplated making their escape from the country; but the timely arrival of Dr. Reese soon restored their courage. Dr. Reese heard the history of the transaction. He then threw water in the face of the sleeping Negro, slapped him, raised him up, shook him violently, and after a little he was roused to consciousness, greatly to the relief of all present.
The Doctor then gave the youngsters a lecture on the dangers of such frolics, and cautioned them against a repetition of their heedless act.
This of course broke up the ether frolics in this neighborhood.
Dr. Wilhite thinks it was more than an hour from the time the messenger started for Dr. Reese, till he returned with him to Mr.
Ware’s. The distance to Athens and back was ten miles, and all this time the Negro boy was profoundly narcotized.This is unquestionably the first case in which sulphuric ether was ever given to the extent of producing complete anaesthesia.
What was seemingly an innocent prank had actually turned into one of the most groundbreaking discoveries of all time.
For a long time, surgeons ordered strong liquor, opiates (like morphine), hemp, mandrake, and even straightjackets to minimize errors caused by their writhing patients.
Mesmerism was the standard in Europe and in America.
Now, all they needed was a sponge or towel and a bottle of ether.
At the close of the century, New Jersey minister Amory H. Bradford (1846-1911) declared ‘the discovery of anaesthetics…one of the greatest blessings which ever came to the human race.’
Sims went as far as to say it was the second greatest.
Vaccination is perhaps the greatest boon ever conferred by science on humanity. Anesthesia is the next.
England gave us the one. America the other.
Sims further stated:
…he (Dr. Wilhite) presumed that he was the first person who had ever profoundly etherized any one — and it was under these circumstances.
However, ether for medical purposes was unheard of.
At the age of 20, ten whole years before graduating medical school, Wilhite’s research with Dr. Long cemented his place in the history of medicine.
After quite a few “frolics” of their own, Long, 26, and his team (all between 19 to 21 years of age) made the decision to experiment with the “wonder drug” in other ways. What might appear to our modern sensibilities as juvenile judgement, was not simply an ecstatic epiphany. (Although they were probably on ether at the time.) It was not by chance or by happenstance that Long proceeded with human trials. Rather, Sims tells us:
Wilhite encouraged him by relating the case of the Negro boy he had playfully and unintentionally put under the influence of ether for an hour or more in the Fall of 1839.
In his first article on the subject, Long wrote that his inspiration to induce ether anesthesia for surgical purposes came from the fact he and his friends never felt the pain of bruises they received while under the influence of ether.
For some reason or another, Long had conveniently left out Wilhite’s story of the Negro boy.
Because neither Long, nor Wilhite, published their findings, other men such as Morton, Wells, John Charles Warren (1778-1856), and Erastus Edgerton Marcy (1815-1900) (who suggested Wells try ether in place of nitrous oxide), were often credited for the discovery of ether’s anesthetic properties.
But the record is clear. Sims highlights the facts:
Long’s anaesthesia with sulphuric ether was on the 30th March, 1842.
Wells’ anaesthesia with nitrous oxide gas was on the 11th December, 1844.
Morton’s anaesthesia with sulphuric ether was on the 30th September, 1846.
Thus we see that Long ante-dates Wells two years and eight months, and ante-dates Morton four years and six months.
It was not until seven years after his discovery that Long published “An Account of the First Use of Sulphuric Ether by Inhalation as an Anaesthetic in Surgical Operations” in the Southern Medical and Surgical Journal.
While the scientific community remained largely unfamiliar with the details of Long and Wilhite’s accomplishments, a handful of professional bodies caught on over time.
In 1852, the Medical Society of the State of Georgia (now the Medical Association of Georgia) officially considered Long the first to use sulfuric ether for surgical anesthesia and referred the discussion about this claim to the AMA.
Years later, at an AMA meeting, Wilhite was acknowledged to be the official discoverer of the anesthesia ether. It was also determined that his services should be recognized by the government, but this was never done.
On June 18, 1879, the National Eclectic Medical Association passed a resolution acknowledging Long’s primacy.
The American Society of Anesthesiologists currently recognizes anesthesia as ‘possibly America’s greatest contribution to medicine‘ and Long’s work as ‘the world’s first administration of anesthesia for surgery.’
But medical experts and professional researchers still get it wrong from time to time. A March 2015 article on “Ethics and the Practice of Anesthesia,” published in the AMA’s Journal of Ethics opens as follows:
Anesthesia began in 1846, when an American dentist administered diethyl ether to a patient undergoing neck surgery.
This is evidently a reference to Morton’s public demonstration of his ether brand “Letheon” in an attempt to patent the drug for personal profits. (At least the operating surgeon was on to him.)
However, it is prudent on us, not only as researchers, but as representatives of our community, to shine a light upon the contributions of our people, no matter how dim that light may often seem.
Re-Enactment of an Early Operation Using Ether for Anesthesia in the Teaching Amphitheater at Massachusetts General Hospital
(Also the first photographic record of an actual live medical operation, featuring the aforementioned Dr. Warren)
late spring 1847
Photographers: Albert Sands Southworth and Josiah Johnson Hawes
Boston, Massachusetts
(Source: The J. Paul Getty Museum)
Read more about this photograph here.
In this case, the work of Dr. Long and Dr. Wilhite amplifies that light.
Dr. Morton was Dr. Wells’ dental protégé and business partner. Morton introduced Wells to Dr. Warren and Dr. Jackson.
It was Jackson, Morton’s chemistry professor from Harvard Medical School, who recommended that he use ether in his dental surgeries. Jackson identified the earliest date of all claimants for an awareness of ether’s potential as an anesthetic (some time in 1841), but never used it in surgery himself.
With success, Morton applied the gas during a September 1846 tooth extraction.
Then it was the operations performed on patients “etherized” by Morton at Massachusetts General Hospital the following month, which, Sims says, ‘introduced and popularized the practice throughout the world.’
If anything, Morton could lay claim to the invention of an apparatus for a more precise and effective delivery of ether.
But when Jackson visited Dr. Long in 1854, he affirmed that the various oral and material evidences of Long’s discovery had predated all others.
So who got the credit?
Sims wrote that each of these men had, in one way or another, suffered from a lack of recognition for their work.
Wells, disappointed in carrying off the honor of the great discovery of anaesthesia, became insane and committed suicide in New York in 1848.
Morton, disappointed at not receiving a pecuniary recognition from Congress for his labors, fretted himself into a congestion of the brain.
Having returned to New York in July 1868, a mentally exhausted Morton fled treatment at one hospital only to die from his physical exertions in another.
Jackson has been for some time in an insane asylum, hopelessly incurable.
And Long?
Long lost his all during our great civil war, and in his old age he is now being worked to death for the daily bread necessary to support himself and family.
Meanwhile, a monument to the discoverer of Anesthesia stood in Boston, with ‘no man…designated thereon by name.’
Even after he had outlived the competition, Long, it seems, was still the least outspoken of them all. Long’s early reluctance to secure his claim and his late absence from the primacy debate led William Raper, a journalist for the Cincinnati Gazette, to concede that ‘Dr. Long may just as well have never lived.’
Still, Sims was optimistic.
The State of Georgia will, at no distant day, erect at its Capitol or its University, a statue of Long, who was unquestionably the first discoverer of anaesthesia.
Some scholars of medical history, like Richard J. Wolfe, will continue to question the extent of Long’s influence in the field.
Wolfe is adamant that Wells’ and Morton’s public demonstrations introduced the concept of inhalation anesthesia to many aspiring physicians and thus changed the game forever. Long’s legacy, in contrast, was rather limited. House Surgeon Charles Frederick Heywood (1823-1893), who is believed to have attended both of the aforementioned trials, wrote that Long’s experiments ‘had no influence or effect in introducing anesthesia into surgery.’ He credited Horace Wells with ‘the first important step in the history of anesthesia.’
In his research, Wolfe further identified three other experiments with ether anesthesia that predated Long.
The first was one in which ether was applied in desperation for a patient of obstetrician Walter Channing in 1833. In order to calm the nerves of a woman in her first of sixteen full-term labors, her husband – a chemistry professor with no medical training – thought ether was worth a shot. It is also worth noting that Channing was a mentor for both Jackson and Morton.
The second case involved a dental student named William E. Clarke who successfully administered ether to a woman for a tooth extraction two months before Long’s first experiment.
In yet another case, George Gordon Gallup, the son of a prominent Vermont physician, claimed to have introduced his ‘secret’ technique for pain relief to Jackson, from whom he said Morton ‘stole’ the idea. This technique was one that had apparently ‘saved’ his life on at least one occasion.
Halothane and newer fluorinated ether inhalants have since replaced sulfuric ether, but Long and his patients will be remembered for their part in this chapter of medical history and ether anesthesia continues to be a safe and inexpensive option for healthcare systems in developing countries.
The Cost of Our Ignorance
At this point in the study of our history, we must accept the fact that ingenuity is not uncommonly devoid of certain ethical considerations. It must be understood that at some level or another, scientists such as Sims and Long built their successes upon the exploitation of others. Bereft of Black bodies, Long would not be known to us now as one of “the founding fathers of anesthesiology.”
Likewise, Sims would not be nearly so esteemed as “the father of gynecology.”
If it weren’t for the positions of privilege they occupied in American society, long established along racial lines, they would not have had access to those honorary titles by which we know them today.
The acknowledgement of Black men, Black women, and Black children as a principle factor in the careers of these and other practitioners is not to nullify the merits of their knowledge, neither should it serve to subtract from the satisfactions of healing, which we continue to enjoy.
We must further acknowledge a danger far greater than the hurt of those lingering memories. If knowledge is power, then ignorance is weakness. Thus, we can only intensify the pain of past afflictions if we deny those wounds a proper a-dressing.
The image of Long posing with his assistants before a Black patient has appeared countless times on social media pages and websites dedicated to the Black experience with a caption about “drapetomania” diagnoses during the time of slavery and the practice of doctors amputating the legs of runaways as a “cure” for their insanity (read thoughts of freedom).
This is proof that sometimes, even the most well-intentioned attempts to make sense of this history can be problematic when, in the process of analyzing the details, integral parts of that very history are removed from their original context.
With that in mind, there are gaps in our knowledge of this history, which are also likely to frustrate an ethical analysis.
Is Long’s work in the 1840s interchangeable with that of Dr. Samuel Cartright (1793-1863), who first wrote on drapetomania in 1851? It is worth noting that the removal of fingers and toes triggers a different response in the body from the removal of external tumors. Did he amputate the appendages of slaves to relieve their suffering or to cause them pain? Were these vessels merely for practice, like Sims used his patients, to perfect his technique for a more affluent and delicate (White) clientele?
Of course, the nature of Sims’ and Long’s experiments were not identical. Both involved the use of slaves. But to conflate them may lead us down a slippery slope.
We might consider, for example, that the work of Long would have helped Sims’ patients through his procedures. But even then, does that justify Sims’ choice of subjects? If ether had not been as effective, would Long’s work prove to be just as callous?
Although Sims never used anesthesia on his Black subjects at a time when its uses were noted by a growing body of scientists, he always used anesthesia on his White patients for the same procedures. Sim’s primary excuse was that he believed the pain Blacks experienced in the course of his experiments was not enough to warrant the ‘trouble and risk.’ Meanwhile, morphine was administered to Black women and Black girls in high doses, and this was only allowed after the completion of Sim’s surgeries. To make matters worse, Morton’s subjects developed addictions to these treatments.
That we should find such a profound reverence for the applications of ether anesthesia in Sims’ later reflections on the work of its early forerunners is remarkable, to say the least.
Still, one thing is for certain: to consistently pair research with physical and mental abuse is a sure way to encourage ignorance. It seems that all too often, scientific research has been associated with the darker parts of our story.
Ultimately, one might be lead to question…
Is science the White man’s witchcraft?
Were Black people only to serve as their sacrificial lamb of experimentation?
Is the purpose of science itself to eradicate the Black race?
Is the study of medicine just a tool to kill us all?
“Drapeto-mania” may be a vestige of quack science, but left unchecked and taken to the extremes, our fears ever-present can drive us to the edge.
Given the history of medical experimentation on Black Americans from colonial times to the present, Black people have ample reason to be concerned.
Harriet A. Washington, author of the critically acclaimed Medical Apartheid (2007), writes in her book:
Historically, African Americans have been subjected to exploitative, abusive involuntary experimentation at a rate far higher than other ethnic groups.
But ‘the fear of medicine,’ says Washington, ‘helps perpetuate our nation’s racial health gulf.’
The best way forward is for physicians, patients, and ethicists to reach for a common understanding that both acknowledging abuses and encouraging African Americans to participate in research are compatible goals.
The key question for us now in the 21st century is this: How much have we changed as a society when it comes to our approach to medical research and what are we doing to actively ensure that these abuses do not happen again?
Some of us only see the evidence of these historical injustices as yet another opportunity to challenge the qualifications of “White academia.”
Some evoke the nightmare of American history only to use these stories as further pretext for demonizing campaigns calling for a prioritization of our health through proven channels.
But we must never lose sight of our own fundamental need for medical research and our share (and well-deserved at that) in the resulting benefits of these studies – whether that research is in a lab or in a clinical setting.
Washington agrees.
History and today’s deplorable African American health profile tell us clearly that Black Americans need both more research and more vigilance.
Sure, we must be vigilant, but it is not for us to lose sleep over these affairs.
After all, our health is just as important as our history.
To stem the prospect of another medical apartheid – studies like Long’s and Sims’ – will take a prevailing awareness about these sensitive chapters of history among our own people.
Washington believes that a meaningful attempt at social and psychological healing is one that starts with reclaiming the narrative in the imagery surrounding that history. In the hallways and classrooms of medical, dental, pharmacy, and nursing schools across America, it is more likely to find romanticized images of White males in the process of advancing science. Often times, the imagined arts of Robert Hinckley and Robert Thom take precedence over actual records of scientific exploits like that of Crawford Long and his patient sitter.
More importantly is the need to rectify that continued imbalance within the scientific community – one that is inherent not only within the historiography of healthcare or in textbook illustrations, but in faculty recruitment, in student acceptance, and in workforce employment.
The patient, too, has a part to play in the process of recovery.
For those of us who have the knowledge, it is time for us to engage in studies of our own.
We can do this by organizing our own researchers – men and women from our communities who we can trust – under the oversight of conscientious leaders.
We don’t need to fear for the future. We need to learn from the past.
We need not substitute informed decision-making with ignorant decision-taking.
Where we are lacking in knowledge, let us seek truth.
We will find that truth, not by guesswork, but by the power of research.
With history as your guide, make science your pride.
The science that deforms is the same science that restores.
The science that disturbs is the same science that preserves.
The science that ills is the same science that thrills.
The bottom line is this:
While you’re busy being “woke” to your history, don’t sleep on the science.
Omri Coke
Omri is a history and science buff with a passion for research.
Through his research, he hopes to inspire others like himself on their own path of self-education and self-development.
This article was originally published online by the author on July 16, 2017, then re-published with more content on March 4, 2020. It has again been updated and re-posted here.
References
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Chang, C.Y., Goldstein, E., Agarwal, N. et al. Ether in the developing world: rethinking an abandoned agent. BMC Anesthesiol 15, 149 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12871-015-0128-3.
Long, Crawford W. (Crawford Williamson), 1815-1878; Sims, J. Marion (James Marion), 1813-1883. “The History of Anesthesiology, Reprint Series: Part One: An Account of the First Use of Sulphuric Ether” / “The Discovery of Anesthesia” / “Letter From J. Marion Sims to Crawford W. Long.” Park Ridge, Illinois: Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology, 1971. [online] https://www.woodlibrarymuseum.org/e-book/the-history-of-anesthesiology-reprint-series-part-1-an-account-of-the-first-use-of-sulphuric-ether/
Lowry, Bates, and Isabel Lowry. The Silver Canvas: Daguerreotype Masterpieces from the J. Paul Getty Museum. Los Angeles: The Museum, 1998. [online]. https://www.woodlibrarymuseum.org/e-book/the-history-of-anesthesiology-reprint-series-part-1-an-account-of-the-first-use-of-sulphuric-ether/
Madden, M. “Crawford Long.” New Georgia Encyclopedia, last modified Oct 31, 2018. https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/science-medicine/crawford-long-1815-1878/
Markel, Howard. “The painful story behind modern anesthesia.” PBS, 16 Oct. 2013, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/the-painful-story-behind-modern-anesthesia
Reis Júnior, Almiro dos. “O primeiro a utilizar anestesia em cirurgia não foi um dentista. Foi o m édico Crawford Williamson Long.” Revista Brasileira de Anestesiologia (“The first to use anesthesia in surgery was not a dentist. It was the doctor Crawford Williamson Long.” Brazilian Journal of Anesthesiology) [online]. 2006, v. 56, n. 3, pp. 304-324. Epub 29 May 2006. ISSN 1806-907X. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0034-70942006000300010.
Scott, Brian. “Historic Wilhite House Historical Marker.” Edited by Kevin W., The Historical Marker Database, 14 Oct. 2020, https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=10737.
Washington, Harriet A. Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. New York: Harlem Moon. 2006. pages 21, 65 [print]
Wolfe, Richard J. Tarnished Idol: William Thomas Green Morton and the Introduction of Surgical Anesthesia: a Chronicle of the Ether Controversy. Norman Pub. 2001. pages 497-517. Google Books [online] https://www.google.com/books/edition/Tarnished_Idol/P3Z4qpMtxtIC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=long