In the late nineteenth century, for the first time in history, major surgery became reasonably safe. A mortality of up to 30% was considered reasonable. The living abdomen, hitherto a region as unexplored as darkest Africa, was opened up to light and to the knife in explorations not unlike those of Africa — bold, dramatic, often not too well thought out, and dangerous. Surgeons became enthusiastic — some of them wildly so. The subsequent period has been called 'the adolescence of surgery'. It included major surgery, often on the abdomen, done for psychiatric symptoms. Ovaries and wombs...
In the late nineteenth century, for the first time in history, major surgery became reasonably safe. A mortality of up to 30% was considered reasonabl...
