The early days of appendicectomy.
I suppose the commonest abdominal emergency operation performed throughout most of the world today is an appendicectomy--usually through an abdominal incision of various shapes and now, increasingly, by laparoscopic surgery. The results are excellent, with a low morbidity and tiny mortality. Indeed, in my own experience of 40 years of surgery, (1948 to 1989), there was not a single death in the various units that I worked on, although we had some fairly hairy near-misses among patients with advanced peritonitis at the time of their surgery.
Department of Anatomy, University of London, Guy's Campus, London, SE1 1UL.
Harold
H
Ellis
D001062:Appendectomy / Q000266:history*; D004630:Emergencies / Q000266:history; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D017052:Hospital Mortality / Q000266:history; D006801:Humans