Thomas Keith (surgeon)

Thomas Keith (1827 to 1895) was a Scottish surgeon born in St Cyrus, Kincardineshire, who graduated MD at Edinburgh in 1848 and became house surgeon to James Syme at the Royal Infirmary, where Joseph Lister succeeded him and remained a lifelong friend. After a period in Turin he practised in Edinburgh, became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and specialised in gynaecology. He performed his first ovariotomy in 1862, learning the operation from Thomas Spencer Wells, and kept careful records of his results; his mortality rate was lower than other published series, and fell to about four percent once he adopted Lister antiseptic technique. He also performed hysterectomy, moved to London in 1888 and died there in 1895. Earlier, between about 1853 and 1856, he was a notable amateur photographer who improved the waxed paper process.