Evan O'Neill Kane (1861-1932), a pioneering American surgeon, gained fame for performing an appendectomy on himself under local anesthesia in 1921. Remarkably, this was just one of three major self-surgeries he undertook during his distinguished career, including a finger amputation.
Born on April 6, 1861, Evan O'Neill Kane was the son of Major General Thomas L. Kane, founder of Kane, Pennsylvania, and Elizabeth Dennistoun Wood Kane, a physician. In the early 1880s, Kane pursued medicine, graduating from medical school in Philadelphia in 1884. He established himself as a skilled surgeon, spending much of his career at Kane Summit Hospital, which he co-founded with his brother and mother.
Kane was cautious about general anesthesia due to its risks and complications, reserving it only for essential cases. He championed local anesthesia, performing several self-operations to demonstrate its safety and efficacy to skeptical patients and colleagues.
Kane's first self-surgery came in 1919, when he amputated his own infected finger. Two years later, facing acute appendicitis, he performed a groundbreaking appendectomy. By then, he had conducted over 4,000 such procedures and believed local anesthesia was safer. To prove it, he volunteered as his own patient.
On February 15, 1921, propped up with pillows and using mirrors for visibility, Kane injected novocaine and removed his appendix while conversing casually with his team. His brother, also a physician, closed the incision. This feat was all the more impressive given his prior finger loss.
At age 70 in 1932, Kane addressed an inguinal hernia from a horseback riding accident six years prior (as shown in the photo above). Amid laughter and jokes, he meticulously sutured under the abdominal muscle near vital blood vessels. The procedure took one hour and fifty-five minutes, and he resumed surgery just thirty-six hours later.
Tragically, Kane passed away a few months later from pneumonia, unrelated to his self-operations.
