Toward an Understanding of the Equality of Pain: Crawford Long and the Development of Anesthesia in Antebellum Georgia ★

Dr. Crawford Long's career illustrates the complicated intersection of science, sympathy, medical experimentation, race, and gender within the history of anesthesia in the United States. Considered by many to be the first physician to administer ether for surgical anesthesia, Long anesthetized a broad cross-section of his rural Georgia society, including white men, white women, and enslaved black children. These initial uses of ether can be considered both a racialized and gendered experiment reflective of contemporary thinking as well as a radical expression of equality in the context of medical development and understandings of pain. Emerging from this examination of Long's practices and writing is the narrative of a well-meaning and time-bound doctor, living amidst the shadows of antebellum plantations and confronted by his diverse patients' experience of pain.