STRAPPED INTO A CHAIR, a pale young man with a tumor in his jaw awaited his fate without showing a twinge of fear; he said he even felt "confident." Surprising remark, considering he was about to undergo surgery at a time when screams accompanied incisions and whisky was often the best way to dull the pain. But on October 16, 1846, at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, dentist William Morton administered ether before the surgery, and the patient felt no pain. Morton did not discover ether. Valerius Cordus did, in the 16th century. Nor was he the first to use it during a surgical procedure. Georgia physician C.W. Long excised a tumor from a patient using ether in 1842--for a $2 fee. As for coming up with the word anesthesia, Oliver Wendell Holmes gets the credit. But because Morton was the first to spread the news to the scientific community--an account of the operation appeared in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal--he is remembered as the man who opened a new era for surgeons around the globe.