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Surgery: An illustrated history

1995; Elsevier BV; Volume: 21; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/s0741-5214(95)70308-x

1097-6809

Wiley F. Barker,

History of Medicine Studies

Surgery: An illustrated history Ira M. Rutkow, Chicago, 1993, Mosby - Year Book, Inc., 550 pages, $99. This volume contains an immense amount of information on all aspects of surgical history, told well and wisely. Quotations from historical characters or by their contemporaries enliven the material. One of the often inevitable limitations, however, of such sources is the necessary reliance on the translation of original sources, usually by nonsurgeons, whose failure to grasp the surgical implications might lead a nonsurgical mind astray. The volume is organized by time and by geographic areas, until more modern eras are considered, when discussion by specialties enters. There is necessarily limited material from the ancient days of Eastern Asia in view of the restricted role played by surgery in that area and era. Dr. Rutkow faces the dilemma of having to present the much more complicated story of surgery of the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries in a progressively more sketchy form compared with the intense scrutiny of events of the centuries before. There comes a time in recent "history" where an author stands too close to the action to know whether he is speaking of history or of clinical choices. Thus, in fact, the recent history of surgery seems shortchanged. Because this review is in a journal devoted to vascular surgery, it should be noted that the modern history of vascular surgery participates in this limited treatment, and within this topic several errors or oversights appear. For instance, although Bernheim's volume is mentioned, there is no reference to the encyclopedic book of Ernst Jeger, which in its second (and posthumous) printing in 1933 presented the first case of "successful" replantation of the upper extremity, performed by Jeger in 1914. Robert Gross is given primary credit for the first operation for coarctation, but Crafoord performed his first coarctation 6 months before Gross, although that report only reached the United States a week after Gross' first operation. Leriche's original promulgation of the existence of the syndrome of the obstruction of the aortic bifurcation was in 1923, not 1940, which was the date of the first study in which he describes successful treatment by arteriectomy. Billroth is misquoted regarding the loss of respect for anyone who attempts heart surgery, an error perpetuated by Thorwald's "Century of the Surgeon." Billroth's statement is probably a misquotation or misunderstanding of a statement that actually belittled the procedure of pericardiocentesis by surgeons. Dubost is credited with the first successful aortic replacement for abdominal aneurysm (as is commonly done), but Hardin and Schaffer actually performed their first operation a week before Dubost. Their study appeared in print later and may have been overlooked because the title did not specify that one of their several patients underwent operation because of an abdominal aneurysm. These lesser criticisms should not detract from this encyclopedic story of our surgical roots. Many of the illustrations alone are renditions of classical art of considerable beauty, worthy of a book primarily on art. Dr. Rutkow's beautifully printed, illustrated, and clearly written volume deserves a place on every surgeon's library table.