I was reading a post about unique things you wouldn’t want, such as a nasty medical condition named after you.
That got me thinking.
What is the most unique thing.
Being the tallest person doesn’t count, because there is always a tallest person…
I thought maybe units of measure, there are not really that many units named after people. Newton, Pascal, ampere etc… Turns out there are quite a few.
Next thought was atomic elements, there are 19 named after 20 people. That is fairly unique 20 people out of the ~110 billion to have ever lived, have an element named after them.
Robert Liston performed a single surgery with a 300% mortality rate (probably).
I wonder how much is embellishment over the years.
If you sawed off your assistants fingers (hard to do with a hand saw); good chance they would also catch gangrene. Far more likely is that at the first sign of a saw hitting your finger, you move it out of the way.
The third person “died of fright”, could have been heart attack. So definitely plausible.
These surgeons were moving fast, I can see it.
I was sawing wood one night and barely touched my thumb webbing, split open like a mouth. Bet you could take 3 fingers an single forward and back stroke. You can for sure with modern blades.
(If anyone is considering a new saw, get the kind with this sort of edge: https://www.amazon.com/REXBETI-Folding-Camping-Pruning-Quality/dp/B07BLQBN8X/ Those are modern day light sabers.)