Tait’s contributions to abdominal surgery

“While his work on gallbladder disease was perhaps the most important, it must be emphasized that he exerted his greatest influence by advancing three general ideas. First of all he insisted on early diagnosis and urgent operation for acute abdominal conditions, whether associated with bleeding, obstruction, or infection. Secondly, he overcame the reluctance of his contemporaries to operate in the presence of acute peritonitis. Thirdly, he preached the value of exploratory laparotomy in chronic conditions in which diagnosis was uncertain. Today these ideas are commonplace and accepted without argument; in Tait’s time they were revolutionary” (Shepherd, 73).