As one reads the history of anesthesia, which has been written up by a number of different authors, each, for the main part, having some particular object in view, or some particular friend whose claims he wishes especially to advocate, he may find mentioned at least a dozen different names of men who are supposed to have had more or less to do with this eventful discovery. But, for all practical purposes, one may reduce the list of claimants for the honor to four men, each of whose claims I propose to briefly discuss. These men were Long, Wells, Jackson and Morton. Of these four, two were dentists and two practising physicians, to whom fate seems to have been unkind, as it often is, since three of them at least died a violent or distressing death, while the fourth lived to a ripe old age, harassed at almost every turn by those who sought to decry his reputation or injure his fortunes. Crawford W. Long was born in Danielsville, Ga., in 1816. In 1839 he graduated from the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania. In the part of the country where Long settled it was a quite common occurrence to have what were known as "ether frolics" at social gatherings, ether being administered to various persons to the point of exhilaration, which in some instances was practically uncontrollable. Long's friends claim that he had often noticed that when the ether effect was pushed to this extent the subjects of the frolic became oblivious to minor injuries, and that these facts, often noticed, suggested to his mind the use of ether in surgical operations. There is good evidence to show that Long first administered ether for this purpose on the 30th of March, 1842, and that on June 6th he repeated this performance upon the same patient; that in July he amputated a toe for a negro boy, but that the fourth operation was not performed until September of 1843. In 1844 a young man, named Wilhite, who had helped to put a colored boy to sleep at an ether frolic in 1839, became a student of Dr. Long's, to whom Long related his previous experiences. Long had never heard of Wilhite's episode, but had only one opportunity, in 1845, to try it, again upon a negro boy. Long lived at such a distance from railroad communication (130 miles) as to have few advantages, either of practice, observation or access to literature. Long made no public mention of his use of ether until 1849, when he published An Account of the First Use of Sulphuric Ether by Inhalation as an Anesthetic in Surgical Operations, stating that he first read of Morton's experiments in an editorial in the _Medical Examiner_ of December, 1846, and again later; on reading which articles he determined to wait before publishing any account of his own discovery, to see whether anyone else would present a prior claim. No special attention was paid to Long's article, as it seemed that he merely desired to place himself on record. There is little,