Julie Fenster

It was often permanently damaging to a patient's emotional state.

I'm Julie Fenster.

I write about American history.

Some of the patients remembered the sound of their limb dropping to the ground or the saw going through their sinew and bones.

The smell of their own body being cut into.

Usually, a surgeon would employ six burly men to hold a patient down.

And instead of having an operation, some people committed suicide before they would face going into an operating room, which were usually located on the top floor of a hospital, in part because the hospital really didn't do itself a lot of good to have the screams heard by passersby.

And right there in the middle of the room is... The most esteemed surgeon in America, Dr. John Warren.

He had a bag filled with gas.

And Dr. Warren, who had the scalpel raised... He puts it down.

The silence was far more deafening than all the screams that had ever been heard in that operating theater.

The news of the operation went around the world as fast as anything.

News of war or peace didn't travel faster than this.

There's a term for this in physics.

Something to do... An electrician.

Something about light and electricians.

Will you concentrate on the word that's like being left, people being left.

Concentrate on the word like light.

I think the whole line is abandoned as the electricians said they would not be current.

One bird.