Opening with an examination of the May Thorne negligence case of 1904, I will also, in the latter third of this piece, focus on surgical risks encountered by women surgeons, themselves still relatively new and, therefore, potentially risky individuals. In theory, therefore, blame for mistakes could be shared amongst the team in practice, this was not always the case. With the glorification of the heroic surgeon in the late Victorian and early Edwardian period came a corresponding, if grudging, recognition that successful surgery was supported by a team of ancillary professionals. By this point surgery could be seen, simultaneously, as safe (due to developments in surgical science) and increasingly risky (because such progress allowed for greater experimentation). This article explores the ways in which risk and responsibility were conceptualised in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by surgeons, their patients and the lay public.
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