Georgia physician Crawford Long performed the first documented surgery using ether anesthesia on March 30, 1842, painlessly removing a neck tumor from patient James Venable. Trained at the University of Pennsylvania, Long noticed that people at recreational ether frolics felt no pain from injuries, and applied that observation to the operating table decades before it became standard.

Cautious about protecting his reputation in an era of medical quackery, Long delayed publishing his results for years. In 1846 a Boston dentist named William Morton publicly demonstrated ether and claimed the discovery, sparking a bitter national credit dispute. Long spent years gathering affidavits to prove his priority but never received recognition or reward in his lifetime.

• Long observed master surgeons operating on fully conscious, physically re ...