A History of Surgery

Surgery in prehistoric times. The early years of written history - Mesopotamia, Egypt, China and India. Surgery in Ancient Greece and Rome. The Dark Ages and the Renaissance. The Age of the Surgeon-Anatomist: Part One - From the mid 16th century to the end of the 17th century. The Age of the Surgeon-Anatomist: Part Two - From the beginning of the 18th century to the mid 19th century. The advent of anaesthesia and antisepsis. The birth of modern surgery: From Lister to the 20th century. The surgery of warfare. Orthopaedics surgery. Breast surgery. Cutting for the stone. Thyroid and parathyroid. Thoracic and vascular surgery. Organ transplantation. Envoi - today and tomorrow.

Written in a personal and engaging style, by a medical author and teacher of great renown, this book provides a fascinating and informative introduction to the development of surgery through the ages. It describes the key advances in surgery through the ages, from primitive techniques such as trepanning, some of the gruesome but occasionally successful methods employed by the ancient civilisations, the increasingly sophisticated techniques of the Greeks and Romans, the advances of the Dark Ages and the Renaissance and on to the early pioneers of anaesthesia and antisepsis such as Morton, Lister and Pasteur. Fully illustrated in colour, Ellis's History of Surgery is the only serious choice for a reader wanting a lively and informative single-volume introduction to surgical history.

Harold Ellis is a retired Surgeon. He was Emeritus Professor of Surgery in the University of London and most recently a professor in the Department of Anatomy & Human Sciences at the King's College London School of Medicine.