1795, December

John Hunter makes first attempt at aneurysm surgery on a human, viz, on a 45-year-old coachman with long-standing popliteal aneurysm: he attached four cotton ligatures around the artery a distance above the aneurysmal sac, thinking that if blood supply to aneurysm were cut off it would no longer increase in size, the contents of the sac would clot, and in time would be reabsorbed by body. Patient survived as did Hunter’s next three: “The Hunterian operation for aneurysm quickly became the standard procedure for the continent” (Morris, loc 1128). From 1863 through 1940s, Hunter’s approach was supplanted by that of Charles Moore: inserting objects (e.g., wire that formed coils) into the aneurysm to induce clotting. In the first case in 1864 he threaded 26 yards of fine steel wire into the patient’s aneurysm, but he lived only four more days Beginning in 1870s some surgeons ran electric current through the coils to heat them and speed up clotting (loc 1160-66).