History of Surgery Timeline

(c. 6500 BCE – Present)

The history of surgery spans thousands of years, beginning with primitive skull operations in prehistoric times and evolving through ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman medical practices. Major milestones include the development of anesthesia in the 19th century, antiseptic techniques pioneered by Joseph Lister, advances in organ transplantation, and today's minimally invasive robotic-assisted procedures. More Less

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Ancient and Prehistoric Surgery

Amputation of a farmer's forearm in France

5000 BCE

The next oldest known amputation was carried out about 7000 years ago on a farmer in France whose left forearm had been surgically removed, demonstrating surprisingly advanced surgical skill in the Neolithic era.

Image source: Amputation

Narmer establishes Memphis

3100 BCE

Around 3100 BCE Egyptian civilization began to flourish when Narmer, the first Pharaoh of Egypt, established the capital of Memphis, laying the foundations for a society that would produce some of the earliest medical texts.

Image source: Memphis, Egypt

Imhotep writes first treatise on surgery

2700 BCE

In the first monarchic age (2700 BCE) the first treatise on surgery was written by Imhotep, the vizier of Pharaoh Djoser, priest, astronomer, physician and first notable architect.

Image source: Imhotep

Physicians of Egypt's Ancient Empire

2500 BCE - 2100 BCE

Other famous physicians from the Ancient Empire (from 2500 to 2100 BCE) were Sachmet, the physician of Pharaoh Sahure, and Nesmenau, whose office resembled that of a medical director.

Image source: Ancient Egyptian medicine

Edwin Smith Papyrus written

1600 BCE

The Edwin Smith Papyrus is a lesser known papyrus dating from the 1600 BCE and only 5 meters in length, containing detailed surgical observations and treatments for trauma cases.

Ebers Papyrus dated

1550 BCE

The Ebers Papyrus text is dated to about 1550 BCE and measures 20 meters in length, preserving extensive knowledge of Egyptian medicine and pharmacology.

Image source: Ebers Papyrus

Hippocratic Oath written

400 BCE

The Hippocratic Oath, written in the 5th century BC, provides the earliest protocol for professional conduct and ethical behavior a young physician needed to abide by in life and in treating and managing the health and privacy of his patients.

Image source: Hippocratic Oath

Leonidas of Alexandria advocates breast cancer excision

100 CE

About this year Leonidas of Alexandria began advocating the excision of breast cancer via a wide cut through normal tissues like Galen, but recommended alternate incision and cautery, which became the standard for the next 15 centuries.

Galen performs complex surgery in Rome

150 CE

Galen's On the Natural Faculties exemplifies a very accomplished Greek surgeon and physician of the 2nd century Roman era, who carried out very complex surgical operations and added significantly to the corpus of animal and human physiology and the art of surgery.

Image source: Galen

Medieval and Islamic Medicine

Isaac Israeli ben Solomon writes medical works

850

Egypt-born Jewish physician Isaac Israeli ben Solomon (832–892) also left many medical works written in Arabic that were translated and adopted by European universities in the early 13th century.

Image source: Isaac Israeli ben Solomon

Medical School of Salerno founded

900

In the 9th century the Medical School of Salerno in southwest Italy was founded, making use of Arabic texts and flourishing through the 13th century as a center of medieval medical learning.

Image source: Schola Medica Salernitana

Abulcasis practises in Cordoba

950

Abulcasis (936–1013) was an Andalusian-Arab physician and scientist who practised in the Zahra suburb of Cordoba and produced influential surgical texts that shaped European surgery for centuries.

Image source: Al-Zahrawi

Avicenna writes The Canon of Medicine

1025

Persian physician Avicenna (980–1037) wrote The Canon of Medicine, a synthesis of Greek and Arab medicine that dominated European medicine until the mid-17th century.

Image source: The Canon of Medicine

Constantine the African translates Arabic works

1080

African-born Italian Benedictine monk Constantine the African (died 1099) of Monte Cassino translated many Arabic medical works into Latin, transmitting Islamic medical knowledge to Europe.

Image source: Constantine the African

Avenzoar performs first tracheotomy on a goat

1120

Spanish Muslim physician Avenzoar (1094–1162) performed the first tracheotomy on a goat, writing Book of Simplification on Therapeutics and Diet, which became popular in Europe.

Image source: Ibn Zuhr

Rogerius Salernitanus composes Chirurgia

1180

In the late 12th century Rogerius Salernitanus composed his Chirurgia, laying the foundation for modern Western surgical manuals. Roger seems to have been influenced more by Aëtius, Alexander of Tralles, and Paul of Aegina than by the Arabs.

Hugh of Lucca founds Bologna School

1210

Hugh of Lucca (1150−1257) founded the Bologna School and rejected the theory of 'laudable pus', challenging prevailing beliefs about wound healing.

Barber-surgeons practise in European towns

1250

In the 13th century in Europe skilled town craftsmen called barber-surgeons performed amputations and set broken bones while suffering lower status than university educated doctors. With little or no formal training, they generally had a bad reputation until academic surgery developed in the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment.

Image source: Barber surgeon

Worshipful Company of Barbers flourishing

1308

By 1308 the Worshipful Company of Barbers in London was flourishing, organizing the barber-surgeons who provided much of the surgical care of medieval England.

Image source: Worshipful Company of Barbers

Guy de Chauliac, eminent medieval surgeon

1350

Guy de Chauliac (1298–1368) was one of the most eminent surgeons of the Middle Ages, whose writings influenced surgical practice for generations.

Image source: Guy de Chauliac

Guy de Chauliac, eminent medieval surgeon

Renaissance Surgery

Ambroise Paré serves as French army surgeon

1535 - 1590

Ambroise Paré (c. 1510 – 1590) was a French army surgeon from the 1530s until his death in 1590, revolutionizing the treatment of wounds and battlefield injuries.

Image source: Ambroise Paré

Vesalius pioneers empirical anatomy at Padua

1540

Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564), professor of anatomy at the University of Padua, was a pivotal figure in the Renaissance transition from classical medicine based on Galen to an empirical approach of 'hands-on' dissection.

Image source: Andreas Vesalius

Eleno de Céspedes practises surgery in Spain

1580

In the same century, Eleno de Céspedes became perhaps the first female, transgender, or intersex surgeon in Spain, and perhaps in Europe.

Image source: Eleno de Céspedes

Wilhelm Fabry advances German surgery

1590

German surgeon Wilhelm Fabry (1540–1634), 'the Father of German Surgery', was the first to recommend amputation above the gangrenous area, and to describe a windlass tourniquet.

Image source: Wilhelm Fabry

Marie Colinet improves Caesarean techniques

1600

Wilhelm Fabry's Swiss wife and assistant Marie Colinet (1560–1640) improved the techniques for Caesarean Section, introducing the use of heat for dilating and stimulating the uterus during labor. In 1624 she became the first to use a magnet to remove metal from a patient's eye, although her husband received the credit.

Enlightenment Era

Surgery placed on scientific footing during Enlightenment

1715 - 1790

The discipline of surgery was put on a sound, scientific footing during the Age of Enlightenment in Europe (1715–90), transforming it into an academic specialty rather than an accessory field.

Image source: History of surgery

John Hunter, father of modern scientific surgery

1760

An important figure in this regard was the Scottish surgical scientist John Hunter (1728–1793), generally regarded as the father of modern scientific surgery.

Image source: John Hunter (surgeon)

Percival Pott links soot to scrotal cancer

1775

Percival Pott (1714–1788) first described tuberculosis of the spine and first demonstrated that a cancer may be caused by an environmental carcinogen after noticing a connection between chimney sweeps' exposure to soot and their high incidence of scrotal cancer.

Image source: Percivall Pott

Percival Pott links soot to scrotal cancer

Benjamin Bell becomes first scientific surgeon in Scotland

1775

Hunter's student Benjamin Bell (1749–1806) became the first scientific surgeon in Scotland, advocating the routine use of opium in post-operative recovery, and counseling surgeons to 'save skin' to speed healing; his great-grandson Joseph Bell inspired Sherlock Holmes.

Image source: Benjamin Bell

Modern Surgery

Astley Cooper ligates abdominal aorta

1817

Astley Paston Cooper (1768–1841) first performed a successful ligation of the abdominal aorta, a landmark achievement in vascular surgery.

Image source: Astley Cooper

James Syme pioneers ankle amputation

1830

James Syme (1799–1870) pioneered the Symes Amputation for the ankle joint and successfully carried out the first hip disarticulation.

Image source: James Syme

Crawford Long uses ether anesthesia

1842

Beginning in the 1840s, European surgery changed dramatically with effective anesthetics such as ether, first used by American surgeon Crawford Long, and chloroform, discovered by James Young Simpson and pioneered in England by John Snow, who administered it to Queen Victoria during childbirth in 1853.

Image source: Crawford Long

Semmelweis combats childbed fever

1847

The first progress in combating infection in Europe was made in 1847 by Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis, who noticed that medical students fresh from the dissecting room were causing excess maternal death compared to midwives.

Image source: Ignaz Semmelweis

Marion Sims helps found gynecology

1850

Marion Sims (1813–83) received credit for helping found gynecology, but later was criticized for failing to use anesthesia on enslaved Black test subjects.

Image source: J. Marion Sims

Antonius Mathijsen invents Plaster of Paris cast

1851

Dutch surgeon Antonius Mathijsen invented the Plaster of Paris cast in 1851, transforming the treatment of fractures.

Image source: Antonius Mathijsen

Lister presents antiseptic principle

Aug 9, 1867

On 9 August 1867, Joseph Lister read a paper before the British Medical Association in Dublin on the Antiseptic Principle of the Practice of Surgery, which was reprinted in the British Medical Journal.

Image source: Joseph Lister

Macewen performs first successful brain tumor removal

1879

After becoming the first to diagnose the location based on neurological findings alone, Scottish surgeon William Macewen (1848–1924) performed the first successful non-primary brain tumor removal, pioneering brain surgery.

Image source: William Macewen

Godlee completes first primary brain tumor removal

1884

After English physician Alexander Hughes Bennett diagnosed the location based on neurological findings alone, English surgeon Rickman Godlee (1849–1925) completed the first primary (exposed) brain tumor removal.

Image source: Rickman Godlee

Halsted lays out asepsis principles

1890

In the late 19th century William Stewart Halstead (1852–1922) laid out basic surgical principles for asepsis known as Halsted's principles.

Image source: William Stewart Halsted

Röntgen discovers X-rays

1895

The use of X-rays as an important medical diagnostic tool began with their discovery in 1895 by German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen.

Image source: Wilhelm Röntgen

Technological revolution in surgical practice

1900 - 1989

In the past century, a number of technologies have had a significant impact on surgical practice, including electrosurgery in the early 20th century, practical endoscopy beginning in the 1960s, and laser surgery, computer-assisted surgery and robotic surgery, developed in the 1980s.

First successful open heart surgery

1925

The first successful open heart surgery operations were carried out in 1925, opening a new frontier in cardiac surgery.

Image source: Cardiac surgery

First successful heart transplant by Christiaan Barnard

1967

1967: The first successful heart transplant was performed by Christiaan Barnard, marking a milestone in transplant surgery.

Image source: Christiaan Barnard

Key Facts

Trepanation, the drilling of holes into the skull, is one of the oldest known surgical practices, dating back over 8,000 years to prehistoric times.
In 1846, William Morton publicly demonstrated ether anesthesia at Massachusetts General Hospital, revolutionizing surgery by allowing painless operations.
Joseph Lister introduced antiseptic surgical techniques in the 1860s using carbolic acid, dramatically reducing post-operative infections and mortality rates.
The first successful human kidney transplant was performed in 1954 by Joseph Murray in Boston, opening the era of organ transplantation surgery.
Modern robotic-assisted systems like the da Vinci Surgical System, introduced in 2000, enable highly precise minimally invasive procedures with faster patient recovery.

Source

This History of Surgery timeline was generated with the help of AI, using information found on the internet.

We work hard to keep these timelines accurate, but mistakes do get through. If you spot one, email us at [email protected] and we'll fix it for future visitors.

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