Robert Lawson Tait

Robert Lawson Tait

Robert Lawson Tait , called Lawson Tait , (born May 1, 1845 in Edinburgh , † June 13, 1899 in Llandudno , Wales ) was a Scottish surgeon. He was a pioneer in abdominal surgery and is considered one of the fathers of gynecology in the Anglo-Saxon world .

Life

Tait was the son of a lawyer who died early, so he was taught at Heriot's Hospital School (which was set up for poor, fatherless children). At 15 he began to study at the University of Edinburgh on a scholarship, initially the arts, before moving to medicine after a year. Like Joseph Lister , he was a student of James Syme , but also of surgeons such as James Young Simpson and James Matthews Duncan . In 1866 he graduated from the Royal College of Physicians ( he did not have a bachelor's degree) and the Royal College of Surgeons. He then was a surgeon at Clayton Hospital in Wakefield in Yorkshire until 1870 , before setting up as a doctor with a private practice in Birmingham . He was considered controversial and eccentric, but tried to gain recognition in London medical circles. From 1879 he also taught physiology and biology at the Midland Institute. He was involved in the establishment of a hospital for women only (Birmingham and Midland Hospital for Women) in 1871, at which he himself worked as one of the three chief surgeons until 1893.

In Yorkshire he performed his first ovarian removal ( ovariectomy ). All such operations that he had seen in Edinburgh ended in the patient's death. His first patient also died, but the three following survived.

By 1884 he had already performed around 1,000 abdominal operations and gained international recognition. He has lectured in the United States and Canada and received surgeons visits from Europe. He had a large private practice and worked with the anesthetist Ann Elizabeth Clark, who, however, as was customary at the time for surgeons, paid poorly.

From 1883 he was the first to successfully perform operations on the fallopian tube due to extrauterine pregnancy using a new technique ( salpingectomy ). Before that, the patients usually died from it if they were left untreated surgically, and the mortality rate was also very high for the surgeons who dared the operation. Two years earlier, Tait himself had refused to have an operation on a patient, but after her autopsy realized that the operation was feasible. The patient of the first operation in 1883 survived only briefly, but only one patient died in the following 40 such operations that he performed. Ephraim McDowell (1771-1830) removed an ovarian tumor in 1809 in Kentucky . Tait also sometimes removed the ovaries if the patients had psychological problems because they believed it would cure them, but later refrained from doing so.

He also performed the first successful gallbladder removal ( cholecystectomy ). In 1873 he performed a laparatomy to remove a fetus outside the uterus. In 1874 the uterus was removed ( hysterectomy ) because of a uterine myoma . In 1880 he was the first to remove a cyst from the liver due to echinococcosis .

He is also said to have performed one of the first operations to remove appendix ( appendectomy ) in 1880 ( Claudius Amyand was a forerunner in 1735).

He was an opponent of vivisection and a supporter of antiseptic surgery, but in contrast to Joseph Lister, with whom he was in dispute about it, he did not use any additional chemicals such as phenol other than boiling . He also washed his hands thoroughly with soap and placed great emphasis on hygienic conditions in clothing and the environment, including those of the nurses.

Most recently, his career has been shadowed by hostility and legal proceedings that have damaged his reputation. One time he was sued for defamation, the other time a nurse accused him of impregnating her, which he denied. While he was one of the highest-paid doctors at the height of his career, receiving some £ 1,000 per procedure (but also treating poor women pro bono), the financial decline began. He had to sell his new country house, yacht, and houseboat on the Severn. He died of nephritis and uremia .

In 1871 he married Sybil Stewart, whom he knew from Wakefield. The marriage was childless.

Fonts

• Diseases of Women, Birmingham 1886

literature

• W. Risdon: Robert Lawson Tait. London: National Anti-Vivisection Society; 1967.
• M. Golditch: Lawson Tait: The forgotten gynecologist, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Vol 99, 2002, pp 152-156
• J. Glenn, LM Irvine: Dr Robert Lawson Tait: the forgotten gynaecologist, J Obstet Gynaecol., Vol. 31, 2011, pp. 695-696
• A. Greenwood: Lawson Tait and opposition to germ theory: defining science in surgical practice, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Volume 53, 1998, pp. 99-131
• JA Shepherd: The contribution of Robert Lawson Tait to the development of abdominal surgery, Surgery Annual, Volume 18, 1986, pp. 339-349.

Individual evidence

1. Jump up ↑ J. Glenn, LM Irvine: Dr Robert Lawson Tait: the forgotten gynaecologist, J Obstet Gynaecol., Volume 31, 2011, pp. 695-696