Volume 1

Some personal recollections and private correspondence of Dr. Crawford Williamson Long : discoverer of anaesthesia with sulphuric ether together with documentary proofs of his priority in this wonderful discovery / by Jos. Jacobs.

  • Jacobs, Joseph, 1859-1929.
Date:
1919
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some personal recollections and private correspondence of Dr. Crawford Williamson Long : discoverer of anaesthesia with sulphuric ether together with documentary proofs of his priority in this wonderful discovery / by Jos. Jacobs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    MY PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. CRAWFORD W. LONG By JOS. JACOBS, Phar. D. Atlanta, Georgia On his removal from Jefferson, Ga., to Athens, Ga., in the year 1851, Dr. Long, in association with his brother, Dr. H. R. J. Long, and Dr. Hal C. Billups, soon after, became owners of the old drug store in Athens that had been established by Drs. Reese and Ware, situated on Broad street opposite the midway entrance to the university campus. It was in this old store that I enjoyed the honor, in my boyhood, of having this great man as my tutor and mentor, while I worked as his apprentice in the pharmacy of Longs & Billups, with the privi¬ leges of the laboratories of the chemical department of the Univer¬ sity of Georgia, where most of my duties and studies were under the direction of Professor Harry C. White, the present beloved and honored head of the department of chemistry. The gratitude I feel for the guid* ance and friendly kindness of this distinguished physician and pharmacist during these years, now animates and prompts me to attempt to set down some facts in his life, learned through such association and from data furnished me by his daughters, who have shown their friendship for me during all the years elapsed since my boyhood, and whose devotion to their father’s fame has brightened and intensified as time deepened the channels of memory. From family records I learn that Crawford W. Long, the discoverer of surgical anaesthesia, was of Irish descent, through ancestors who first acquired their American citizenship by settlement in Pennsylvania and Virginia. And his life exhibited every phase and degree of liberality, chivalry and benevolence oftimes claimed for those of such extraction. Both of Dr. Long’s grandfathers were soldiers in the Revolutionary War. Edward Ware, his mother’s father (1760-1836.), and Samuel Long (1781-1853), his paternal grandfather, both emigrated to Madison county, Georgia, and there died, after long lives of usefulness and good citizen¬ ship, and their graves have been marked by the U. S. Government as soldiers of the Revolution, at the instance of the Daughters of the Revo¬ lution, upon proofs of their honorable records furnished from the Archives at Washington, D. C. Crawford Williamson Long, the discoverer, son of James Long and Elizabeth Ware Long, was here born November 1, 1815, at Danielsville, in the house inherited from his grandfather, Samuel Long, who had built the same on his removal from Carlisle, Penn., in 1792. His mother was Elizabeth Ware, whose parents, Edward Ware and Sarah Thurmond, had come to Georgia soon after the peace treaty ending our Revolutionary War, from Albermarle county, Va. On August 11, 1842, Dr. Long married Caroline Swain. His death oc¬ curred at Athens, Ga., June 16, 1878, where he then resided. He had been called to the bedside of a lady in childbirth, and fell unconscious while rendering her medical assistance, and survived but a few hours in the guest chamber of his patient’s home. His last words were inquiries about her condition and directions for her welfare.