SH02 THE BIRTH OF VASCULAR SURGERY IN AUSTRALIA

During and after the Napoleonic wars surgeons in Europe, Britain and America ligated peripheral arteries for symptomatic aneurysms. It is not generally known that five surgeons performed similar operations in early colonial Australia. Andrew Gibson ligated the femoral artery in 1827 and William Bland the innominate in 1832 and 1837, all in Sydney. Edward Bedford ligated the carotid artery in Hobart in 1837 having apparently previously ligated one popliteal artery in a patient in 1835 and his other popliteal in 1837. Colin Buchanan of Port Stephens tied the femoral artery of a patient in Stroud in the Hunter Valley in 1847, possibly the first major operation performed under general anaesthesia in Australia; and somewhat later Frederick Milford in Sydney ligated the femoral artery in St Vincent’s Hospital in 1869, again under general anaesthesia. None of these isolated cases was included in an extensive review article in 1847 by G W Norris of Philadelphia, who recorded no less than 118 ligations of the external iliac and femoral arteries between 1796 and 1842, with an overall mortality of 33 (28%). Bland’s operation in 1832 escaped his scrutiny despite its being reported in The Lancet Volume I 1832/3. It is timely that the work of these pioneer ‘vascular’ surgeons and their place in the history of vascular surgery in Australia be acknowledged.