There are many medical reasons that can cause black stools that are tarry with a foul smell, but sometimes dark stools are caused by eating certain foods or taking iron supplements. However, black stools can also be a result of bleeding, and the darker color indicates that the blood could be coming from a point in the upper gastrointestinal tract.
Gertrude Levandowski survived a 96-hour procedure at a Chicago hospital to remove a giant ovarian cyst; the longest surgery. The second longest surgery ever was 40 hours long and that was to remove 6 limbs from a 8 limed baby in India. But the most common longest surgery is spinal cord surgery it is a 14 hour surgery.
On October 16, William T. G. Morton (1819-1868) made history by being first in the world to publicly and successfully demonstrate the use of ether anesthesia for surgery. This occurred at what came to be called The Ether Dome, at Massachusetts General Hospital on patient Edward Gilbert Abbott.