The Lancet: an archive of surgical history

Wakley quickly recognised the potential of surgery in his avowed mission to expose corruption and nepotism, particularly within the hospital system. Cooper represented the small, powerful band of surgeons who dominated hospital positions and private practice in early 19th-century London, UK, and who made a lucrative living from teaching at medical schools. Hospital care remained stigmatised or simply inaccessible to those who depended on manual work to survive. [...]3rd, by what means its effects could be counteracted?” As the case of anaesthesia shows, the boundary between innovation and experimentation in surgery had long been a fragile one, at times to the detriment of patient care. [...]the middle of the 20th century, concepts of patient consent for surgery were ill-defined or even absent.