Legends Of Surgeryさんのイラストまとめ

In the 17th/18th centuries CE, male barber-surgeons began to get involved in childbirth, leading to the title ‘man midwife’, which some took as derogatory (see cartoon from 1793). This led to adoption of the preferred title ‘accoucheur’, a role that became today’s obstetrician.

Sampson’s artery is located below the round ligament next to the uterus, and creates an anastomosis between the uterine and ovarian arteries. While physiologically insignificant, injury to this vessel can be a source of bleeding during surgery. 1/2

Did you know? Scaphoid gets its name from the Greek word ‘skaphos’, meaning boat. It used to be called the navicular bone, which we now use for one of the tarsal bones of the foot. That name came from the Latin word ‘navicula’ (little boat). Both so named because of their shape.

The anatomical ‘snuff box’ is a triangular depression on the lateral dorsal side of the hand, so called because it was used to hold ground tobacco (snuff) before being inhaled through the nose. Tenderness there after a fall may indicate a scaphoid fracture.

On April 14, 1913, German surgeon Ernst Heller (1877-1964) performed the first extramucosal myotomy on the esophagus of a 49 year old male patient with achalasia. The Heller myotomy is still in use, though typically now done laparoscopically.

The Satinsky vascular clamp was created by American cardiothoracic surgeon Victor Paul Satinsky (1912-1997). After serving as a surgeon in WW2, he joined the Hahnemann Hospital in Philadelphia (which closed in 2019) and played a role in developing coronary bypass surgery!

On June 12, 1920, Russian born French surgeon Serge Voronoff (1866-1951), aka “the monkey gland man”, first transplanted thin slices of testicles from chimpanzees and baboons into a human scrotum. His rejuvenation technique was very popular before being debunked by 1935.

The anatomical term ‘ostium’ is a Latin word meaning ‘door, entrance’, and is thought to arise from the Latin ‘os’ meaning ‘mouth’ (think per os, by mouth). The plural ‘ostia’ is also the name of the harbour city of Ancient Rome, at the mouth of the River Tiber (Ostia Antica).

The Kasai procedure, aka hepatic-portoenterostomy, for congenital biliary atresia, was developed by the Japanese paediatric surgeon Morio Kasai (1922-2008). He first performed the procedure in 1955 on a 72 day old infant. It is still used today.

Henri Bismuth (1934-) is a French hepatobiliary surgeon who set up the first liver transplant centre in France. He also helped develop the split liver technique, advanced adjuvant treatment for liver masses, and taught countless surgeons. A living legend. @FlavioRochaMD