March 20 - 26 is National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week®

This week-long observance will bring together teens and scientific experts in community events across the country to discuss scientific facts about drug abuse. It is sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a component of the National Institutes of Health.

This week-long observance is designed to counteract the many drug abuse myths that bombard today’s youth, and encourages community-based question and answer sessions between teens and scientists.

LifeScience Moment: Ether used as surgical anesthetic for the first time

Dr. Crawford Long, an American physician and pharmacist in Jefferson, Georgia, used ether for the first time on March 30, 1842 to remove a tumor from the neck of James M. Venable. Long subsequently removed a second tumor from Venable, and later used ether as an anesthetic in amputations and childbirth. The results of these trials were published in 1848 in The Southern Medical and Surgical Journal.

Although Long is regarded as the first to have used an ether anesthesia in surgery, William T. G. Morton, an American dentist publicly demonstrated the use of inhaled ether as a surgical anesthetic on October 16, 1846 in Boston, Massachusetts.

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Science Quote

"The hypotheses we accept ought to explain phenomena which we have observed. But they ought to do more than this: our hypotheses ought to foretell phenomena which have not yet been observed."