Notable Milestones in Surgical History
living person, seems to have been the first
Using the spirits to cure disease
In many ancient societies the spirits and gods
were believed to make their presence known
through disease. Treatment involved attempts to
satisfy them with ritual chanting or sacrifice,
though this was often combined with direct
treatment of the sick person. In Egypt
astrological explanations and advice sat
alongside prescription of herbal medicines, or
advice on diet and rest. In China a combination
of drugs known as fang was prescribed to
combat disease thought to be caused by angered
spirits.
Ancient Greek physicians such
as Hippocrates are famous for rejecting spiritual
explanations of illness, seeing it instead as a
natural imbalance of the four humours. Yet this
was by no means the only explanation of illness
in Greek society. For every elite healer who
offered a natural explanation of disease, there
were countless diviners and priests ready to offer
a spiritual explanation.  Variolation Technique is developed, involving
Hippocrates (460-377 B.C) and Galen (131-201
A.D) were first physicians to document their
patient’s process of healing to improve patient
care. This completely changed how we viewed
diseases. They were no longer some mysterious
force that took so many lives. One could learn
from how patients heal to improve treatment of
the next patients. In other words, medical
practice in ancient time was about gathering
information and processing information.
However, the use of technology in medical
practice did not start until the 19th century. For a
long time, the practice of medicine was based on
patient’s descriptions of symptoms not based on
hands-on experience such as examination of a
patient’s body. Not until the 18th century did
physicians start to use manual techniques to
diagnose patients and to study dead bodies.
6,500 B.C.E.: Skulls found in France show signs
of a rudimentary surgery called trepanation,
which involves drilling a hole in the skull.
Trephination, or making a hole in the skull of a
surgical practice. 
One theory is that it might have been used for
the exit or entrance of spirits believed to cause
illness, or as a cure of convulsions, headaches,
infections and fractures. 
Both Hippocrates and Galen wrote about
trephining and the practice continued throughout
the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance.
These operations were often highly successful
and many people must have survived the
treatment, as is evidenced by skulls that show
bone regrowth.
Trephination is still used in medical practice
today, although it is reserved for the relief of
epidural and subdural haematoma.
1100s: Variolation- first method used to
immunize a person against smallpox (variola)
the inoculation of children and adults with dried
scab material recovered from smallpox patients.
1540: English barbers and surgeons unite to
form The United Barber-Surgeons Company.
These barber-surgeons performed tooth
extractions and bloodletting.
Physicians were considered an entirely different
profession from surgeons. They treated illness
with medications.
1816: French doctor Rene Laennec invented
the stethoscope. This simple wooden tube
enabled doctors to hear and diagnose chest
diseases. It
Laennec invented the stethoscope because he
was not comfortable placing his ear directly onto
a woman's chest to listen to her heart.
1818: First transfusion of human blood.
1843: First hysterectomy performed, in England.
 This surgical procedure involves removal of the
uterus and cervix, and for some conditions, the
fallopian tubes and ovaries.
 treatment of uterine cancer and various common
noncancerous uterine conditions such as
fibroids, endometriosis, prolapse, etc. , that leads
to disabling levels of pain, discomfort, uterine
bleeding, and emotional stress
1843: First use of ether as an anaesthetic.
1846: First public use of anesthesia during
surgery. Ether was used. The patient was
conscious but felt no pain during the procedure
to remove a tumor in his neck.
1885: First successful appendectomy performed,
in Iowa.
1889: William halsted develops the radical
mastectomy to treat breast cancer; the technique
includes the surgical removal of the tumor,
breast, overlying skin and muscle.
1890: Widespread use of chemical agents to
minimize germs. Carbolic acid was put on
incisions to minimize germs and decrease
infection rates.
1895: First X-ray performed, in Germany.
Welhrm Conrad Roentgen invents X-rays.
Radiation therapy follows.
This changed the way doctors diagnosed and
treated disease. X-ray machines became
powerful medical tools over the next 30 years,
especially during the First World War. Doctors
could now see deep inside the body without
using exploratory surgery.
X-rays were not just used for
diagnosis. Cancer could be treated using
X-ray radiation therapy devices. However,
unprotected exposure to X-ray radiation causes
burns and cancer. Many patients
and radiologists in the early 20th century died
from overexposure before the risks were
understood. Using proper safety measures,
X-rays were the main imaging technology until
the 1970s.  licensed in the US; tetanus toxoid is introduced.
1896: First successful heart surgery performed,
in Germany. Surgeons repaired a stab wound in
the muscle of the right ventricle.
Ludwig Rehn
1900: Primary treatments of neurotic mental
disordes, and sometimes psychosis, are
psychoanalytical therapies developed by
Sigmund Freud and others.
1901: Blood Type
Blood groups were discovered in 1901 by an
Austrian scientist named Karl Landsteiner.
Before that, doctors thought all blood was the
same, so many people were dying from blood
transfusions.
This one started with a Greek Physician (in the
Roman Empire) named Galen. He proposed that
blood was made from the food we ate, along
with the liver.
Your blood sample is mixed with antibodies
against type A and B blood. Then, the sample is
checked to see whether or not the blood cells
stick together. If blood cells stick together, it
means the blood reacted with one of the
antibodies.
The second step is called back typing. The liquid
part of your blood without cells (serum) is
mixed with blood that is known to be type A and
type B. People with type A blood have anti-B
antibodies. People with type B blood have anti-
A antibodies. Type O blood contains both types
of antibodies.
1905: First successful cornea transplant.
One of the bilateral corneal transplants
performed by Eduard Zirm in December 1905
on a 45‐year‐old farm labourer remained
clear.2 The patient had lime burns and would be
considered a poor candidate for corneal
transplantation today.
1914: Typhoid and Rabies vaccines first
Recommended during childhood. Tetanus is an 1937: First blood bank opens, helping make
illness that can cause convulsions. more surgeries possible by making it possible to
treat bleeding during the
1917: First documented plastic surgery
performed, on a burned English sailor. 1942:  Neurologist Karl Dussik is credited with
being the first to use ultrasonic waves as a
A century ago it was wounded soldiers, rather
diagnostic tool.  He transmitted an ultrasound
than celebrities, getting the latest plastic surgery.
beam through the human skull in attempts of
The First World War saw a huge rise in the
detecting brain tumors.  
number of drastic facial injuries. Surgeon Harold
Gillies developed a new method of facial 1943: Penicillin becomes mass produced.
reconstructive surgery in 1917. 
Group of antibiotics.
 Many patients lived in fear of what their loved
remission of a pediatric leukemia patient.
ones would say when they saw how badly
disfigured they were.  1949: Austrilia pschiatrist J.F.F. Cade introduces
the use of lithium to treat psychosis. Lithium
1919: Chemotherapy is born.
gains wide usage in the mid-1960’s to treat those
1922: Insulin first used for the treatment of with manic depression, now known as bippolar
diabetes, allowing people with diabetes to disorder
survive after diagnosis.
1950s: First LASIK eye procedures performed,
1928: Antibiotics discovered. in Columbia.
1930: German has the first sex-change 1950: First successful organ transplant. The
operation (male to female). kidney recipient rejected the organ after eight
months.
The first sex change man to woman surgery was
performed in 1930 in Germany. The patient, Lili 1950: John Hopps invents the cardiac
Elbe, underwent five different surgeries during pacemaker.
her transformation including a vaginoplasty and
CP- medical device that generates electrical
a surgery meant to transplant ovaries that failed.
impulses delivered by electrodes to cause the
Sadly, Elbe died soon after the completion of her
heart muscle chambers to contract and therefore
fifth procedure. 
to pump blood.
 In the 1970's sex change surgery become a hot
1950: Findings related to DNA give rise to
topic in the United States with successful
molecular biology.
completion of tennis player Renee Richards's
surgery. To anatomically change the penis and 1953: First successful surgery using a heart-lung
give a man the appearance of a vagina requires bypass machine that provides blood and oxygen
several steps. First, the testicles are removed and to the body while the heart and lungs are
skin from the penis area is used to structure the stopped.
vagina. This surgery is called a vaginoplasty and
when successful results in a sensate vagina. A Cardiopulmonary bypass- technique that takes
part of the penis is used to shape the clitoris. The over the function of the heart and lungs during
results of this type of surgery vary due to each surgey.
patient's skin and other factors. In addition,
vaginoplasty is only one part of the entire
reassignment process which includes therapy,
other surgeries, hormonal treatment, and more.
1954: First successful living donor kidney
transplant, the kidney was donated by the
recipient's twin brother. The recipient lived eight
years after the procedure.
1955: The first polio vccine is licensed
pioneered by Dr. Jonas Salk.
Polio- virus that can result to spinal cord and
brainstem paralysis.
1957: William Grey Walter invents the brain
EEG topography (toposcope).
Electroencephalogram- to determine presence of
tumors and focal disease
1964: A US surgeon general’s report establishes
an undeniable link between smoking and cancer.
1966: First successful pancreas transplant.
1967: First successful liver transplant.
1967: First heart transplant surgery performed,
by South African Christian Barnard. The heart
recipient survived 18 days until succumbing to
pneumonia.
1972: The development of computed
tomography (CT) revolutionizes radiology.
CT Scan- diagnostic imaging used to create
detailed images of internal organs, bones, soft
tissue, and blood vessels.
1975: First organ surgery performed
using laparoscopic, or minimally invasive,
technique.
1978: First "test-tube" baby born using in vitro
fertilization.
1982: Jarvik-7 artificial heart used.
In National Museum
1984: Baby Fae survives 21 days after being
transplanted with the heart of a baboon.
1985: First documented robotic surgery.
Use of machines guided by doctors to perform
surgical procedures
1986: Prozac is developed to treat various
mental illnesses.
1994: the world's first full-face replant operation
was perfomed by Dr Abraham Thomas, one of
India's leading microsurgeons, on nine-year
old Sandeep Kaur(India),who had her face and
scalp ripped off when one of her pigtails got
caught in a threshing machine whilst on her
family's farm in Chak Khurd, northern India. 
Sandeep's mother, Harpal, put the face into a
plastic bag, and then took her to Christian
Medical College hospital - a drive of over three
hours. 
Dr Thomas was on duty and performed a 10-
hour operation to reconnect nerves and
bloodvessels. 
1999: First successful hand transplant (previous
patients had rejected their grafts).
2000: da Vinci robotic surgical system wins U.S.
Food and Drug Administration approval. The
system is now used in a wide variety of
procedures, including prostate
surgeries and coronary artery bypass.
2007: First natural orifice transluminal
endoscopic surgery performed. This technique
uses a natural body opening, such as the mouth,
to insert instruments and minimize recovery
times.
2008: Connie Culp has the first near-total full
face transplant in the United States, performed at
The Cleveland Clinic.
Culp was shot in the face by her husband
Thomas G. "Tom" Culp in a failed murder-
suicide in September 2004 inside their bar
in Hopedale, Ohio. 
The shotgun blast destroyed Culp's nose, cheeks,
the roof of her mouth and an eye. She underwent
30 operations prior to the face transplant on
December 10, 2008. Surgeon Maria
Siemionow led a team of doctors in a 22-hour
operation which replaced 80 percent of Culp's
face with the face from another woman who had
recently died.
2010: World's first full-face transplant
performed, in Spain.
The 24-hour operation, which took two years to
plan, was believed to be the first time an entire
face - including the skin, muscles, teeth, lips,
cheekbones and jaw - were transplanted and
reconstructed, using tissue from a brain-dead
donor.
2013: A nerve transfer procedure gives a
paraplegic patient the ability to move their
hands.