History Memes

Speed you say:

Amputated the leg in under 2 1⁄2 minutes (the patient died afterwards in the ward from hospital gangrene; they usually did in those pre-Listerian days). He amputated in addition the fingers of his young assistant (who died afterwards in the ward from hospital gangrene). He also slashed through the coat tails of a distinguished surgical spectator, who was so terrified that the knife had pierced his vitals he fainted from fright (and was later discovered to have died from shock).[29]

This episode has since been dubbed as the only known surgery in history with a 300 percent mortality rate. The situation that Gordon labels "Liston's most famous case" has been described as apocryphal.[31][32] No primary sources confirm that this surgery ever took place.[33]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Liston