A history of surgery

Surgery as a medical discipline has from its beginnings appealed to the imagination of many. It is therefore not surprising to find that its colourful past has induced quite a few authors to take up their pens. The truth of this in the Netherlands is witnessed by a number of dissertations and monographs and especially by the numerous articles related to the history of surgery which have appeared in the medical weekly Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde, particularly during the two decades pr