Evan O'Neill Kane

Evan O'Neill Kane (1861-1932) was an American surgeon who served as chief of surgery at Kane Summit Hospital in Kane, Pennsylvania, a town and hospital that took their name from his family. He worked widely in railway surgery, the occupational and trauma care of railroad workers, and published on surgical methods and equipment, including asbestos bandages, mica windows for brain surgery and hypodermoclysis at several sites. He held that many operations did not need general anesthesia, and he made the point in public by removing his own appendix in 1921 under local anesthetic. In 1932, at the age of 70, he again operated on himself to repair a hernia. Some of his habits were unusual: he left a small coded inked signature near the incisions of certain patients, and he proposed tattooing matching marks on mothers and newborns to prevent mix-ups. His mother was also a physician and his family home, Anoatok, is on the National Register of Historic Places. He testified in 1931 at the trial of his son Elisha Kent Kane III, who was acquitted of murder.