Including graphic accounts of wartime surgery, wound treatments, blood transfusions, and body snatching, this historywill inform and intrigue medical professionals and general readers alikeRecounting the story of the early history of surgery, when surgeons were equipped with just knives, fire, and boiling oil, this bookcelebrates the dedication and ingenuity ofsurgery's early pioneersand documents some of their remarkable surgical procedures. The two events which mark the beginning of "modern" surgery are the introduction of anesthesia and antiseptic, both in the second half of the 19th century, however, present day knowledge and techniques have resulted from the cumulative observations and experiments of centuries. This history includes ancient Babylonian and Assyrian surgical laws, Egyptian textbooks from 3000 BC, the second-century Chinese surgeon Hua To, Hindu physicians who created artificial noses hundreds of years before plastic surgery, and the brilliant William Cheselden, who could remove a stone from a bladder in less than a minute."


W. J.Bishop (19031961) was a highly regarded librarian, editor, and historian. After more than30 years in libraries he decided to devote the remainder of his life to his own researches in medical bibliography and history. He was the editor of ＂Medical History,＂ the only British journal devoted to the history of medicine, and was anhonorary member of the Royal Society of Medicine.＂