A black and white photograph depicting preparation for an amputation. The photographic image, probably made between 1855 and 1860, shows Dr. Crawford Long of Athens, Georgia, demonstrating the use of ether anesthesia in surgery. The scene was staged to portray Dr. Long’s original discovery and use of anesthesia in 1842, four years before it was demonstrated at Massachusetts General Hospital by William T. Morton. Dr. Long's claim was eventually verified.

Drs. Herff, Reuss, McDaniel, Graves, Oldham, Braunnagel

Croce's classic work contains the earliest illustration of neurological surgery. The operation, which takes place at home surrounded by family members, servants, and pets, is a trephination, in which the physician drills into the patient's skull to relieve pressure.

The only known first-hand likeness of Vesalius shows the anatomist grasping the dissected arm of a cadaver. Vesalius' head is disproportionately large compared to his body, but the cadaver is larger still, leading to speculation that the engraver, von Calcar, pulled the composition together from several sources.

First to discover the pulmonary circulation of blood, the Spaniard Michael Servetus was notorious for his rationalist, anti-trinitarian views. He was condemned by the French Inquisition for heresy and sentenced to death by slow fire at the stake.