Robert Liston (1794-1847) was a Scottish surgeon who is most famous for amputating a patient's leg in under 2.5 minutes
Robert Liston (1794-1847) was a Scottish surgeon who is most famous for amputating a patient's leg in under 2.5 minutes, operating so quickly that in the process also amputated the fingers of his assistant and slashed the coat tails of a spectator, who dropped dead from sheer terror. Both the patient and his assistant later died from gangrene, making it the only recorded operation with a 300% mortality rate. British surgeon and author Richard Gordon described Liston as the following: "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 ...