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Ira M. Rutkow, MD, MPH, DrPH

Arch Surg. 1998;133:107.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

OF THE MANY American surgical tours de force that occurred during the early to mid-19th century, the attempted performance of ovariotomy was among the most notable. However, because these early oophorectomies for massive enlargement of the ovaries found little favor secondary to their generally poor results, the only other reasonable treatment that could be offered the hapless sufferer was palliation by "tapping" (ie, to repeatedly withdraw the ever-reaccumulating fluid). Not surprisingly, the clinical stories of constantly removing increasing amounts of "cyst material" are staggering. As reported in Paul Eve's (1806-1877) A Collection of Remarkable Cases in Surgery (1857), one physician told of a case in which paracentesis was completed 80 times on the same patient during a 25-year span with an accumulated removal of 3136 L of fluid. Another surgeon described an ovarian cyst from which 193 kg of fluid was withdrawn in 10 . . . [Full Text of this Article]