Robert Liston

Robert Liston (1794 to 1847) was a Scottish surgeon born in the manse at Ecclesmachan in West Lothian, the son of a clergyman. He trained at Edinburgh Medical School and in London, taught anatomy in Edinburgh, and served as an operating surgeon at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh before moving to London in the 1830s. He is remembered for the speed and skill of his operating in the years before anaesthesia, when a shorter operation meant less pain and a better chance of survival. In 1835 he became the first Professor of Clinical Surgery at University College Hospital, and on 21 December 1846 he performed the first public operation in Europe using ether anaesthesia. He published Practical Surgery in 1837 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1841. He died in 1847 of a ruptured aortic aneurysm at his home in Mayfair. This record describes a historical surgeon and is not medical advice.