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E-book Belly-Rippers, Surgical Innovation and the Ovariotomy Controversy

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Penilaian

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For the next twenty-five years, the justifiability of opening the abdo-men to treat ovarian disease would remain contested, causing deep schisms in the profession, through which reputations were lost and careers ruined just as often as fortunes were gained and lives were saved. It was an operation that thrilled and horrified in equal measure with its daring, as surgeons cut through the peritoneum—the membrane in which the abdominal organs were enfolded—to remove the ovaries. Its development marked a critical juncture in the emergence of modern surgery, as the justifiability of using surgery to treat a chronic internal disease became the centre of debate. The question of whether the chance to cure a patient allowed for the substantial risk to life posed by a major surgical operation went to the heart of medical ethics and divided the profession, raising questions about the degree of power that surgeons could and should exercise over the human body. Advocates and oppo-nents of the procedure clashed over the operation in the pages of the medical press. Robert Liston, Professor of Surgery at University College London in the 1830s and 1840s, declared those who performed ovar-ian surgery to be liable to charges of homicide and denounced them as ‘belly-rippers’, a macabre turn of phrase, which signalled the emotionally charged atmosphere surrounding the operation.2In the late 1860s, mortality rates for the operation began to decline significantly, in part due to the work of two exceptionally prolific and skilful practitioners, the Edinburgh obstetrician Thomas Keith and London surgeon Thomas Spencer Wells. Keith had begun performing ovariotomy in 1862 and five years later had published the striking results of his first fifty-one cases: forty of his patients had recovered, with all but one of those individuals seemingly completely cured.3 His recovery rate of around eighty per cent was equal to, if not better than, those of other established ‘capital’ operations: procedures like amputation, which came with a high risk of death.4 By the late 1870s, ovariotomy was beginning to be depicted as one of the major surgical innovations of the past dec-ades, gaining a status similar to that of the discovery of anaesthesia or the introduction of Listerian antisepsis.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

902 FRA b

Penerbit

Switzerland : Springer Nature., 2018

Deskripsi Fisik

277 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9783319789347

Klasifikasi

902

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

Miscellany of History

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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