ABSTRACT
Dr James Gilmore was the first patient to have one whole lung removed surgically at a single operation. 1 This treatment was for squamous cell carcinoma of the lung when he was 48 years old in 1933. The surgeon was Dr Evarts Graham who, when he was positive that the tumour was malignant, told Gilmore and described to him the planned operation. Gilmore asked for a few days to go home and arrange his affairs and included in this was the purchase of a cemetary lot. Most unusually, the patient also paid a visit to his dentist to fill some cavities that had been bothering him! Graham later said 2 in 1957 that Gilmore had told him that the visit to the dentist was to give him great assurance! The pneumonectomy was successful and Dr Gilmore died in 1963 at the age of 78 years: cause of death was cardio-renal disease. He outlived his surgeon by six years since Dr Graham died in 1957 of inoperable cancer of the lung. 3
