Dr. Evan O'Neill Kane was the chief surgeon of Kane Summit Hospital in New York City and had practiced his specialty for 37 years. He was convinced that general anesthesia was too risky, that people should be operated on with simply a well-administered local anesthesia so the risks of general anesthesia could be bypassed.

He was anxious to prove his theory. The problem was finding a guinea pig willing to go under the knife while conscious. All those he talked to, it seemed, were fearful of their bodies waking up during the surgery and feeling the pain of the deep, probing scalpel.

Finally he found a subject. Kane had performed appendectomies thousands of times. So it was, once again, the same procedure. The patient was prepped and brought to the operating room. The local anesthesia was carefully administered and the surgery began. As always, Kane cut across the right side of the abdomen and went in. He tied off the blood vessels, found the appendix, excised it, and sutured the incision.

Remarkably, the patient felt little discomfort. In fact, he was up and about the next afternoon, which is remarkable since this was 1921, when people who had appendectomies were typically kept in the hospital six, seven, or eight days.

It was a milestone in the world of medicine. It was also a display of courage, because the patient and the doctor were one and the same. Dr. Kane had operated on himself!