1681?-1740

French physician best known for performing the first documented appendectomy. Amyand, surgeon to the King of England, recorded removing the inflamed appendix of a 12-year-old boy in 1736, noting that the organ was perforated by a pin the boy had apparently swallowed. Today, the appendectomy is considered a routine surgical procedure and is performed quite frequently. Without this surgery, many, if not most, appendicitis patients would die because as the appendix becomes inflamed it can burst and infect the entire abdominal cavity.