Originally posted by tim60 Now you are suggesting they are third world farmers, into "hack and slash".
Well, they pretty much used to be, back when being good meant being quick.
Robert Liston (hey, another Bob!) was one of the best - or at the very least quickest according to Wikipedia:
Quote: He was six foot two, and operated in a bottle-green coat with wellington boots. He sprung across the blood-stained boards upon his swooning, sweating, strapped-down patient like a duelist, calling, 'Time me gentlemen, time me!' to students craning with pocket watches from the iron-railinged galleries. Everyone swore that the first flash of his knife was followed so swiftly by the rasp of saw on bone that sight and sound seemed simultaneous. To free both hands, he would clasp the bloody knife between his teeth.
He supposedly was able to amputate a leg in less than half a minute, although not always entirely successfully:
Quote: He is said to have performed the removal of a limb in 28 seconds, accidentally amputating his assistant surgeon's fingers, causing the patient and assistant to die of sepsis, and a witness reportedly dying of shock, making this surgery the deadliest in history.