When one thinks of surgeons and deaths in the operating room, the general thought might be of a healer being unable to save a patient's life due to factors that are more often than not out of their control.
However, it has been said that a 19th-century surgeon once killed three people while performing an amputation - and two of those people were not the patient!
Is there any truth to this, or is it a terrible attempt at medical horror?
VERDICT:
TRUE
Yes, this actually happened; the surgeon in question was Dr Robert Liston, who was operating as the Professor of Clinical Surgery at University College Hospital, London, at the time, having been appointed to the post in 1835.
Liston worked in an era before even basic anaesthesia was known in Western medical science, and as such surgeons had to work very fast to minimise the pain, shock and blood loss they'd inevitably inflict on the patient, and speed was Liston's claim to fame.
Indeed, his renown came from the fact that he could amputate a person's leg cleanly in 30 seconds; in most instances, it actually saved lives, a fact highlighted in a 2012 article in the Royal College of Surgeons of England Bulletin.
"He performed 66 amputations between 1835 and 1840, and only 10 died – a mortality rate of 1 in 6. A little down the road at the time in St Bartholomew’s Hospital, the surgeons were sending one in four to the mortuary," wrote the article's author, general surgeon Bill Thomas.
So, what happened to give Liston the record of being the only surgeon to kill three people in one operation, a record that remains unbroken to this day?
Well, this was one of those days where speed and pathogens killed, as Thomas explained.
"Liston’s flaying knife accidentally amputated his assistant’s fingers in addition to the diseased limb.
The outcome was horrific: the patient died of infection as did the poor innocent assistant, an observer died of shock – Liston’s knife had slashed through his coattails, and the poor terrified spectator thought it must have pierced his vital organs," said Thomas.
He also said in the same article that Liston was no stranger to such mishaps, as in another amputation, he took several other body parts of the patient along with the leg being cut off.
"In one case, Liston, in his zeal, amputated not only the leg but also the poor patient’s testicles as well," said Thomas.
Ultimately, Liston was among the first doctors to embrace anaesthesia when it became available, despite calling the American discovery a "Yankee dodge" when using it for the first time on Dec 21, 1846 - a sign that he was indeed focused on patient care.
References:
https://publishing.rcseng.ac.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
https://museumofhealthcare.
