Robert Liston (1794 - 1847) was
a pioneering Scottish surgeon. He was likely the best
surgeon of his day, noted for his
skill and his speed in an era prior to
anesthetics. He was able to
complete operations in a matter of seconds, at a time when
speed was essential to reduce pain and improve the odds of
survival of a patient; he is said to have been able to
perform the removal of a limb in an amputation in roughly 30
seconds.There are stories of occasions when his operations went wrong due to the speed at which he attempted them. The two most notable examples of this were when he amputated a man's testicles along with his leg by mistake and another operation where the patient died of infection, he cut off the fingers of his assistant (who also died due to infection) and slashed the coat of a spectator who died of fright. Robert Liston is the only surgeon in known history to have performed an operation with a 300% mortality rate. There is, however, apparently no precise source for these stories, so they might well just be regarded as urban legends.
Liston received his education at Edinburgh University and in 1818 became a surgeon in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. He became Professor of Clinical Surgery at University College, London in 1835, and in December of 1846, he carried out the first public operation using ether anesthetic in the UK. He invented locking forceps, and the Liston Splint, used to stabilize dislocations and fractures of the femur. Source: Wikipedia
