Surgery

By the late nineteenth century, surgery was still performed rarely. For example, in 1867, only 3.2% of the hospital admissions involved surgery at the Charity hospital in New Orleans. By 1939, surgery was involved in about 40% of admissions.

But surgeons of the nineteenth century broke many barriers. As recently as the 1880s, most surgeons would not intentionally operate on the head, the chest, or the abdomen unless an injury already existed. Over the next A neurosurgeon using a computer-controlled robot arm (called a "magic-wand") during an operation to remove a brain tumor. In the background, a screen shows a number of computer tomography (CT) scans of the patient's head. With the CT scan data being fed into the robot's computer, even a small tumor can be found and removed with minimal damage to surrounding tissue. Photograph by Geoff Tompkincon. National Audubon Society Collection/Photo Researchers, Inc. Reproduced by permission. few years, surgeons mastered numerous abdominal operations, including surgery for appendicitis, new types of hernia operations, and surgery for ovarian disorders.

During the twentieth century, surgeons created successful techniques to operate on the brain and the heart and even techniques for organ transplantation. Surgeons became elite members of the medical establishment, earning more money than general practitioners and gaining celebrity as medical trailblazers.

Once a last resort, surgery is now performed frequently. Each year, a total of 25 million surgical operations calling for anesthesia are conducted in the United States. These operations cost a total of about $125 billion annually.