Neck dissection in the nineteenth century

Abstract

The nineteenth century brought great progress in several Welds of surgery and medicine. In addition to the fact that insights, which were gained in the laboratory or during anatomic dissection studies, were, for the Wrst time, correlated to bedside Wndings and could then be used to improve the treatment of patients, the medical world struggled to discard the baggage of useless and counterproductive traditional treatments such as venesection (bleeding) and purging, previously employed to treat almost any ailment. It was the beginning of modern, science-based medicine. The Wrst half of nineteenth century medicine was dominated by the “Paris School” of French physicians and surgeons. Dominique Jean Larrey (1766–1842) and Pierre Francois Percy (1754–1825) accompanied Napoleon through many of his campaigns while acquiring extensive military surgical experience. Guillaume Dupuytren (1777–1835) accomplished numerous surgical innovations as chief surgeon at the Hotel Dieu. Laennec, Bretonneau and Bouillaud among many others developed a scientiWc basis of examination of patients and explanation of the cause of many diseases. In the second half of the nineteenth century while Paris was still paramount in the world of medicine, the “New Vienna School” as well as a generation of German surgeons were instrumental in the development of modern surgical treatment as well as understanding of the cellular basis of disease. The English speaking world produced pioneers of medicine throughout the nineteenth century including the “Irish School” of Graves, Stokes and Corrigan, and the great physicians of Guy’s Hospital in London including Bright, Addison,