Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 37, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 July 1905 — The First Gallstone Operation. [ARTICLE]

The First Gallstone Operation.

A party of physicians left Indi anapolis last week to attend the meeting of the American Medical Association at Portland, Oregon They totfk with them as their guests of honor Mrs Mary E. Burnsworth of McCordsville, the first patient in tbe wor'd who underwent a surgical operation for gall stones. She is now 68 years old and the picture of health. The operation was performed by John 8. Bobbs, an Indiana surgeon, June 15, 1867, and it gave the doctor a world vide reputation as the pioneer in this line of surgery. The operation, which was up to that time unknown, is now performed, it is estimated, about seventy-five times each day in the hospitals of Europe and America, and tbe loss of life is less than 3 per o*nt, Dr. Bobbs practiced 1"b profession in Indianapolis thirtyfive years and was one of the commiesioners who o*ganiz°d the Indina Hospital for the Ineane.