ABSTRACT
Clinicians have probably struggled with the capricious nature of predicting surgical outcome for hundreds of years. If one wanders off the beaten track to the basement of the Louvre in Paris, one will come across a black diorite plinth inscribed with hieroglyphics from the time of King Hammurabi of Babylon (Fig. 1). As early as 1750 B.C., he issued edicts aimed at practicing clinicians, the best known of which is:
If a surgeon operates on a free man and the man dies or goes blind then the surgeon should have his hand cut off. If a surgeon operates on a slave and the slave dies then it is the responsibility of the surgeon to replace the slave.
