When was ethyl ether first used as a surgical anesthetic?

The American physician Crawford Williamson Long is traditionally recognized as the first to use ether as a surgical anesthetic, having successfully removed a tumor from a patient's neck using the substance in 1842.1

Although Long performed this procedure earlier, he did not publish his findings until 1849. Consequently, the dental surgeon William Thomas Green Morton is credited with gaining the medical world's acceptance of the practice after he provided the first successful public demonstration of ether anesthesia during surgery on October 16, 1846, at Massachusetts General Hospital.123

While there were several claimants to the discovery of surgical anesthesia, including Horace Wells and Charles Jackson, historical consensus acknowledges Long's priority in actual practice, while Morton is recognized for the public demonstration that popularized its use in the medical community.213