Wells Spencer

WELLS SPENCER (Sir Thomas Wells, 1817-97), famous English 'ovariotomist,' one of the founders of modern operative gynecology. His initial acquaintance with medicine was gained as a teenager while apprenticed to practicing physicians, and only later did he receive systematic education in Dublin and London. The first 15 years after completing his medical education, W. served as a naval physician, among other things participating in the Crimean campaign. Here he had the opportunity to observe a large number of wounded, including those with abdominal wounds. These observations confirmed his belief that injuries to the peritoneum were not always absolutely fatal. After the end of the war, W. retired, settled in London, and took charge of a modest women's department at Samaritan Hospital. Here from the end of 1857 he began performing ovariotomies with such brilliant results for that time that he soon acquired world fame. He described his first series of 114 ovariotomies, in which he lost only 38 patients, in the book: 'Diseases of the ovaries-their diagnosis and treatment' (L., 1865). The second edition of this book was published in 1872 and is already a true treatise on ovarian diseases, the description of 500 ovariotomies being merely an appendix to the text of the book. In 1881, W. reported on 1,000 ovariotomies, of which 769 patients survived the operations, and in his last series of 100 ovariotomies, W. lost only 11 operated patients. Such an exceptionally exceptional material for that time greatly expanded W.'s field of activity, and he gradually transformed from an 'ovariotomist' into an 'abdominal surgeon' and began operating not only on ovarian cysts but also on other tumors of the female reproductive sphere and abdominal cavity. As a result, the third edition of his book (1882) and the fourth (1885) were titled: 'Diagnosis and surgical treatment of abdominal tumours'. Reading these four books in chronological order, one can get a vivid picture of the historical development of abdominal surgery and in particular to evaluate the role of W. himself in this brilliant development. W. continued to work until deep old age.

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