(Roughly) Daily

From artist and illustrator Neill Cameron, a celebration of superheroes, celebrities, comic characters– and the allure of alliteration:  “The A – Z of Awesomeness.”

As we parse our pleasures, then pause to ponder pain, we might recall that it was on this date in 1842 that anaesthesia was used for the first time in an operation– by Dr. Crawford Long.  Long, a physician and a pharmacist, used diethyl ether in the removal of a tumor from the neck of James Venable in Jefferson, GA; given success with Venable, Long then used ether in other surgeries and in childbirths.  He published the results of these trials in 1848 in The Southern Medical and Surgical Journal (an original copy of which is held in the U.S. National Library of Medicine).

It’s cool that Long is the subject of one of the two statues representing Georgia in the crypt of the U.S. Capitol.  It’s cooler that Long was the the cousin of Doc Holliday.

Crawford Long