The renowned surgeon Lawson Tait was born on May 1st 1845 in Edinburgh.
Born Robert Lawson Tait, to a middle class family, he attended Heriot's Hospital School and showed great promise, In 1860, the 15-year-old Tait won a scholarship and attended the University of Edinburgh to study the arts, where he subsequently changed course to study medicine, graduating in 1866.
He started his professional career in Wakefield before moving to Birmingham, specialising in gynecology and is widely known as the first to perform salpingectomy to treat ruptured tubal pregnancy, to put it into layman's terms this was a treatment for ectopic pregnancy, a procedure that has saved countless lives since. He was also the first to record removal of an ovary for relief of pelvic pain and to induce menopause, this was way ahead of its time. His scrupulous cleanliness was undoubtedly the forerunner of modern aseptic methods.
Tait's bold, innovative surgical techniques led to a significant decrease in surgical mortality, and his prescient, aggressive approach was at the forefront of changes in the practice of obstetrics, which resulted in a marked decrease in maternal morbidity and mortality. This master teacher, whose contributions inspired the next great generation of abdominal and pelvic surgeons, deserves greater recognition than the few who know of him.
What I also like about Tait is that he was a fervent antivivisectionist. He argued that vivisection was a selfish act in which humans forced living animals to suffer in order for their own benefit. He also argued that the only people outside of medical fields who supported vivisection were the rich. These proponents acted as "amateur poultry butchers" and took to maiming pheasants for fun. As such, the less wealthy saw supporting vivisection as enabling the frivolous and wasteful lifestyles of the wealthy. And although being quite religious he believed in evolution and that humans share a history with lesser animals, they deserve equal rights. As such, despite their inability to speak for themselves, they should be treated with care and respect as one would treat a human being.
He is said to have had disagreements with the pioneering Joseph Lister and believed that using nothing more than boiling water for cleaning his instruments had the same results as Listers antiseptics, this was borne out with his results, mortality for this operations was over 90%. Tait was able to achieve exceptional results in his surgery using his techniques, as they were simple, low-cost, effective, and not limited by the presence of chemicals.
I think it is quite amazing we do not know more about this man, here are a list of his some of his firsts;
First removal of an organ (Ovary) (
Observation of association of cystic ovaries and excessive menstrual bleeding.
Surgical induction of menopause by removal of ovaries.
Removal of infected tubes.
Drainage of pelvic abscesses
First appedoctomy in 1880. It was later learned that he was anticipated by French-born English surgeon Claudius Amyand in 1735, but Tate removed the first appendix.
First Cholecystectomy (gallbladder surgery)
Tait's career began to decline in 1892. Due to his lifelong history of advocating for new techniques and against common practices (e.g. vivisection and antisepsis), there were many who saw him as an enemy and a nuisance. Tait’s productivity slowed to a halt due to his declining health, along with two legal situations. The first of these was a lawsuit from Andrew Denholm, and the second was a threat to bring action against Tait for supposedly seducing a nurse.
In his retirement, Tait continued to stay active within medicine. Many younger doctors respected and admired him, and he regularly contributed to meetings at several Medical Institutions. He died in 1899, at the age of 54 of Nephritis and Uremia , after a week and a half of severe illness. He remained lucid in his final days, and left instructions that his body be buried in a cave near his home! At the time of his death, several of his contemporaries published writings in praise of his medical advances, character, and work at hospitals for poor women
He isn't altogether forgotten though, The Lawson Tait Society at Birmingham University.
Oh his burial? Well he was cremated, still a relatively new concept for christians in the 19th century, his ashes however were interred in Gogarth's Cave, an ancient burial-place in the grounds of his Welsh home on the west side of Great Orme's Head near Llandudno.
I garnered most of the info for this post from Wiki, although other info came from several other sources.
