Surgical Anesthesia

Until the discovery of anesthesia by Crawford Williamson Long in 1842, surgery was an excruciating ordeal, usually attempted only in cases of dire injury or illness. Some patients used alcohol or opium to lessen the pain; others recited verse. Passing out was a blessing. Surgeons worked at breakneck speed to get in and out of the patient's body as quickly as possible. Anesthesia changed all this, permitting surgeons to work at a slower, more careful pace.
The Spaniard Lullius discovered ether, an organic solvent, in 1275, but its anesthetic properties were unknown. In the early 1800s people inhaled ether at parties to make themselves high. Long, a physician in Jefferson, Georgia, frequently prepared ether at the request of his friends. One evening he used it himself at a so-called ether frolic and badly bruised himself while he was high. Yet, Long noticed, he felt no pain.
On March 30, 1842, Long convinced James Venable, who had two cysts in his neck and was terrified at the prospect of surgery, to try ether. Venable did, and the ether made him unconscious. The operation was a success, and Venable, amazed, felt no pain at all. During the next four years, Long successfully used ether as anesthesia on eight patients.
But in 1842 the physician Charles Jackson and a dentist, William Morton, learned what Long was doing with ether and stole his secret, possibly after visiting Jefferson. Morton used ether to anesthetize two patients at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital on October 16, 1846, in front of an audience of famous surgeons. The results were published, and anesthesia was soon used around the world. Long received no credit for the discovery.
The claims of Jackson, Morton, Long, and others created bitter quarrels about who actually invented surgical anesthesia. The Congress of the United States even took up the matter, debating the issue for 16 years without ever deciding who first introduced ether as an anesthetic procedure. But the use of anesthesia developed rapidly. Later, scientists found new anesthetic agents, developed better methods of administering anesthetic gases, and eventually discovered the use of local anesthesia.
source: encarta encyclopedia