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Ira M. Rutkow, MD, MPH, DrPH

Arch Surg. 1999;134:902.

	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 magnificent stories that make up American surgical lore, one of the most renowned concerns that of Ephraim McDowell (1771-1830) and Jane Todd Crawford (1763-1842), and his performing on her, on Christmas Day 1809, the world's first successful ovariotomy. McDowell was a native Virginian who studied medicine as an apprentice under Alexander Humphreys of Staunton, Va. In 1793, McDowell traveled to Edinburgh, Scotland, where he attended the academic sessions of 1793-1794, followed the anatomy lectures of Alexander Munro secundus (1733-1817), and studied surgery with John Bell (1763-1820). Returning to the United States in 1795, McDowell commenced practice in Danville, Ky, where he was a general practitioner and also acquired a reputation for his surgical skills. Among McDowell's more interesting surgical cases was the extraction of bladder stones from 17-year-old James Knox Polk (1795-1849), later to become president of the United States. Known . . . [Full Text of this Article]