Abstract
From time to time I ask a group of nurses or medical students or even surgeons if they can tell me when the first successful elective laparotomy was performed, where it took place and who was the surgeon. After much thought, someone will guess "end of the 19th century", suggest some great teaching hospital in London or Edinburgh or Vienna and hazard the name of Joseph Lister. To date, no one has given me the correct answer--the date was 1809, the place Danville, in Kentucky USA and the surgeon was Ephraim McDowell.
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