Cardiac Peristalsis: Its Nature and Effects.

Should doctors leave the history of medicine to historians?

“…Eventually, I found this written in The Lancet on 2 April 1898: 'I anticipate that with the progress of cardiac surgery some of the severest cases of mitral stenosis will be relieved'. 8 This statement was made by DW Samways 50 years before the operation of mitral valvotomy was established in clinical practice. I latched onto his words with enthusiasm, revelling in finding the first suggestion of surgery for heart disease.…”

“…Eventually, I found this written in The Lancet on 2 April 1898: ‘I anticipate that with the progress of cardiac surgery some of the severest cases of mitral stenosis will be relieved’. 8…”

The evidence on which to base practice: different tools for different times

“…'Surgery of the heart has probably reached the limits set by nature for all surgery: no new method, and no new discovery, can overcome the natural difficulties that attend a wound of the heart' [12]. A more prescient prediction was made in the Lancet in 1898 by a physician in private practice, Dr D.W. Samways [13].…”

Radical Surgery for Mesothelioma: How CanWe Obtain Evidence?

“…In the face of not only considerable skepticism but outright hostility, only a few surgeons believed that surgery might be the answer [6]. There had been tentative suggestions at the turn of the century that mitral stenosis might be surgically relieved [7, 8]; then in the 1920s Souttar [9] in London and Cutler [10] in Boston each performed a successful operation, but then after a series of early postoperative deaths Cutler wrote a “final report” drawing a line under the episode. There was a surgical moratorium, as later occurred after the 1960s run of heart transplants [11].…”