page_title: History of surgery
section_title: Scientific surgery
hierarchical_section_title: History of surgery / Modern surgery / Scientific surgery
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Benjamin Bell by Sir Henry Raeburn
context_page_description: Surgery is the branch of medicine that deals with the physical manipulation of a bodily structure to diagnose, prevent, or cure an ailment. Ambroise Paré, a 16th-century French surgeon, stated that to perform surgery is, "To eliminate that which is superfluous, restore that which has been dislocated, separate that which has been united, join that which has been divided and repair the defects of nature."
  Since humans first learned to make and handle tools, they have employed their talents to develop surgical techniques, each time more sophisticated than the last; however, until the industrial revolution, surgeons were incapable of overcoming the three principal obstacles which had plagued the medical profession from its infancy — bleeding, pain and infection. Advances in these fields have transformed surgery from a risky "art" into a scientific discipline capable of treating many diseases and conditions.
context_section_description: The discipline of surgery was put on a sound, scientific footing during the Age of Enlightenment in Europe (1715–89).  An important figure in this regard was the Scottish surgical scientist (in London) John Hunter (1728–1793), generally regarded as the father of modern scientific surgery. He brought an empirical and experimental approach to the science and was renowned around Europe for the quality of his research and his written works. Hunter reconstructed surgical knowledge from scratch; refusing to rely on the testimonies of others he conducted his own surgical experiments to determine the truth of the matter. To aid comparative analysis, he built up a collection of over 13,000 specimens of separate organ systems, from the simplest plants and animals to humans.
  Hunter greatly advanced knowledge of venereal disease and introduced many new techniques of surgery, including new methods for repairing damage to the Achilles tendon and a more effective method for applying ligature of the arteries in case of an aneurysm. He was also one of the first to understand the importance of pathology, the danger of the spread of infection and how the problem of inflammation of the wound, bone lesions and even tuberculosis often undid any benefit that was gained from the intervention. He consequently adopted the position that all surgical procedures should be used only as a last resort.
  Hunter's student Benjamin Bell (1749–1806) became the first scientific surgeon in Scotland, advocating the routine use of opium in post-operative recovery, and counseling surgeons to "save skin" to speed healing; his great-grandson Joseph Bell (1837–1911) became the inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle's literary hero Sherlock Holmes.
  Other important 18th- and early 19th-century surgeons included Percival Pott (1714–1788), who first described tuberculosis of the spine and first demonstrated that a cancer may be caused by an environmental carcinogen after he noticed a connection between chimney sweep's exposure to soot and their high incidence of scrotal cancer. Astley Paston Cooper (1768–1841) first performed a successful ligation of the abdominal aorta. James Syme (1799–1870) pioneered the Symes Amputation for the ankle joint and successfully carried out the first hip disarticulation.  Dutch surgeon Antonius Mathijsen invented the Plaster of Paris cast in 1851.
caption: Benjamin Bell (1749–1806) by Sir Henry Raeburn. c1780
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