United States healthcare spending in 2009 averaged more than $8000 per person, for a total of $2.5 trillion (17.6% of gross domestic product.) By 2018 these totals are projected to be $4.3 trillion (20.3% of GDP and $13,100 for every resident.)
The term “anesthesia” was coined in 1846 by physician and noted poet Oliver Wendall Holmes, Sr. in a letter to William G. Morton, the dentist who is credited with the first written description of the use of ether in a medical procedure to relieve pain. Immodestly predicting that his new term would be spoken by Continue Reading
The only surgeon to win a Pulitizer Prize was Harvey Cushing, who was awarded the prize in 1925 for his biography of fellow Johns Hopkins titan Dr. William Osler.
Kentucky physician Ephraim McDowell (1771-1830) has the distinction in American surgery of being the first surgeon to perform an intraabdominal operation when he performed an ovariotomy in 1809 in Danville, Kentucky. His case list also includes the surgical removal of a bladder stone from James Polk, who later became President of the United States. There Continue Reading
Christopher “Kit” Carson is an American hunter, trapper, and frontiersman whose exploits leading John Fremont on his expeditions to the West are now the stuff of myth and legend. What is generally not well known, however, is that Carson was considered to be an expert, although self-taught, surgeon whose advice and treatment was sought throughout Continue Reading
The American Cancer Society has named a list of 19 chemicals and shift work as things that may very likely signficantly increase the risk of cancer. Chemicals on the list included chloroform, formaldehyde, carbon black, titanium dioxide, indium phosphide, and cobalt tungsten carbide.
Pioneering late eighteenth and early nineteenth century surgeon Dr. William S. Halsted was operated on August 25, 1922 at the age of 70 for a “biliary condition” by his own surgical team at Johns Hopkins University. He developed an early post-operative pneumonia and died on September 7, 1922.
Snake oil is a traditional Chinese medicine obtained from the Chinese water snake Enhydris chinensis. Although it is still sold in traditional Chinese pharmacies as a legitimate remedy for pain and inflammation, especially in rheumatoid arthritis and other joint conditions, in the United States the term snake oil is used to denote a product that Continue Reading
InsideSurgery RSS Feed