200th Anniversary of Crawford Long’s Birthday

Some personal recollections and private correspondence of Dr. Crawford Williamson Long, discoverer of anæsthesia with sulphuric ether; together with documentary proofs of his priority in this wonderful discovery, by Dr. Joseph Jacobs. Georgia-related Publications from the Hathi Trust Digital Library
Image from Some personal recollections and private correspondence of Dr. Crawford Williamson Long, discoverer of anæsthesia with sulphuric ether; together with documentary proofs of his priority in this wonderful discovery, by Dr. Joseph Jacobs. Georgia-related Publications from the Hathi Trust Digital Library

November 1 , 2015 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Crawford Long, the North Georgia surgeon and pharmacist acknowledged as the first practitioner of anesthesia.

Long was born in Danielsville Georgia, received his undergraduate degree at the University of Georgia in 1835, then attended medical school, where he began at Transylvania College in Lexington, Kentucky, and finished at the University of Pennsylvania in 1839.  Long performed his first surgery using sulfuric ether as an anesthetic on March 30, 1842, but did not publish his findings until 1849. Long opened a medical practice and a pharmacy in Athens, Georgia in 1851, where he remained until his death in 1878. Long finally received national recognition as the discoverer of anesthesia in 1879 (one year after he passed away) by the National Eclectic Medical Association.

For more in-depth reading, you can find the publication Some personal recollections and private correspondence of Dr. Crawford Williamson Long, discoverer of anæsthesia with sulphuric ether; together with documentary proofs of his priority in this wonderful discovery, by Dr. Joseph Jacobs, who apprenticed as a young man in Crawford Long’s Athens pharmacy.

Also available is Frank Kells Boland’s book The first anesthetic : the story of Crawford Long, published by the University of Georgia Press.

A photograph of Crawford Long’s house on Chase Street in Athens is available as part of Hargrett Library’s Earnest Photographs collection, and several postcards of the Crawford W. Long Monument in Jefferson, Georgia (here and here) are available as part of the Georgia Archives’ Historic Postcard Collection.

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We’d like to welcome Piedmont Regional Library System as a new project partner

Photograph of store fronts, Commerce, Georgia. Commerce Public Library Heritage Room Collection, Piedmont Regional Library System
Photograph of store fronts, Commerce, Georgia. Commerce Public Library Heritage Room Collection, Piedmont Regional Library System

We are happy to announce one of our newest project partnerships with the Piedmont Regional Library System. Their collection, the Commerce Public Library Heritage Room Collection, includes photographs and text representing the history of Commerce and Jackson County, Georgia. These materials were digitized as part of DPLA’s Public Library Partnerships Project (PLPP), which connects public librarians and public library collections with the DLG and DPLA. We appreciate the opportunity to serve the Piedmont Regional Library System and learn more about the communities that they work with.

George Tuttle, the Information Technology Librarian with the Piedmont Regional Library System appointed Tina Harris, member of the Jackson County Historical Society and volunteer at the Commerce Public Library Heritage Room to select materials for digitization. Items in the Commerce Public Library Heritage Room Collection are, according to Tuttle, “a slice of life in Commerce, Georgia.” One of his favorite items in the collection is a color photograph of storefronts in Commerce. Tuttle notes: “It is truly a snapshot in time.”

Tuttle appreciates the opportunity to participate in the Public Library Partnerships project, and notes: “One of the strengths of the Digital Library of Georgia is its representation of all areas and aspects of life in Georgia.”

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