By Harold Ellis. 135 pp. London, Greenwich Medical Media, 1996. (Distributed by Oxford University Press, New York.) $57.50. ISBN 1-900151-15-4.
Anyone interested in surgery or drama will enjoy this small,highly readable book. The author, not surprisingly a surgeon,has assembled accounts of operations that represented majorbreakthroughs (e.g., the first ovariotomy, the first gastrectomy,and the first renal transplantation) or innovations (e.g., Paré'sabandonment of boiling oil for wounds and Lister's use of carbolicacid on a compound fracture) or involved famous patients (e.g.,Edward VII, treated for an appendiceal abscess, and George V,treated for empyema). Edward VII and George V fared better thandid Queen Caroline about 200 years earlier, who died of a strangulatedumbilical hernia . . . [Full Text of this Article]
Previous
