Robert Liston

Robert Liston was a 19th-century Scottish surgeon renowned for his skill and speed in performing amputations and surgeries during a time when anesthesia was not yet widely used. He was one of the first to use ether as an anesthetic, significantly improving patient comfort during operations. Liston is perhaps best known for an incident where he famously amputated a leg in under 30 seconds, although he was also associated with a rare mishap that resulted in the death of a spectator and a dog, highlighting the dramatic and sometimes perilous nature of surgery in that era.