Written in a personal and engaging style, this book provides a fascinating and informative introduction to the development of surgery through the ages. It describes the key advances in surgery through the ages, from primitive techniques such as trepanning, some of the gruesome but occasionally successful methods employed by the ancient civilisations, the increasingly sophisticated techniques of the Greeks and Romans, the advances of the Dark Ages and the Renaissance and on to the early pioneers of anaesthesia and antisepsis such as Morton, Lister and Pasteur.

"This is a book that should be on the shelves of students, academics, and historians of medicine as a single-volume encyclopedia for easy, handy consultation. The division into chapters will make consultation straightforward and the index will help in searching for topics that might not be apparent from chapter titles and their subdivisions."

Alain Touwaide, PhD (The Huntington)

Professor Harold Ellis CBE FRCS qualified in Medicine at Oxford in 1948. He was appointed Professor of Surgery at Westminster Medical School, London, in 1962, retiring in 1989. Since then he has taught anatomy. His particular interests were abdominal and breast surgery. He was consultant surgeon to the army and was appointed CBE in 1987.

Sala Abdalla BSc MBBS MRCS is a senior Specialist Registrar in General Surgery and a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
She graduated from Imperial College, London, in 2008, with a Bachelor’s degree in Physiological Sciences and a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery.
Sala worked as anatomy demonstrator at King’s College, London, in 2010, under the mentorship of Professor Harold Ellis. She is currently completing her higher surgical training in South East London.
With a special interest in education, she has been faculty member at the Guy’s & St Thomas’ MRCS anatomy teaching course, anatomy tutor at Imperial College, London and the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and has directed clinical teaching programs.
She is passionate about global surgery and health provision and in 2017 embarked on her first mission to West Africa on ‘Operation Hernia’. She is first author on a number of peer-reviewed papers and has presented work in national and international forums. This is her first textbook contribution.