ABSTRACT
Surgery had gained a new authority with Dominique-Jean Larrey, yet his wartime service prevented him from refining the art except in traumatology, the study of injuries. Surgical gloves were first mentioned in 1758, when a German obstetrician described a hand-cover for his operations. Guillaume Dupuytren was a magnificent teacher, a dazzling technician with wounds, an eloquent lecturer. Bloated with pride and arrogance, he earned the reputation of being "the greatest of surgeons and the smallest of human beings". In 1877, Pasteur turned to micro-organisms that cause disease in humans. Dr. Bernhard Kronig had spread gas-gangrene spores on his surgical colleagues' arms, and applied various disinfectants. Radical progress was made by those ingenious Scots, Robert Liston and James Syme, both educated in Edinburgh before 1820. At first good friends, they became bitter enemies for some reason, and turned their brilliant surgical practices into a competition, which actually benefited their patients.
