SHARP

Summary

Incisive, brilliant, discriminating, precise? Elementary: Sherlock Holmes. The master of observation and deduction, unmistakable in his cape, pipe, and magnifying glass, yet able to penetrate any layer of society when camouflaged in one of his thousands of disguises. Certainly not the tidiest man in his personal habits, but the most meticulous when dissecting a case, with an innate ability to single out guilt from innocence, discern minute details, avoid external bias, and operate at full power without drawing attention. A true detective of surgical methods. Not entirely fictional, for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's inspiration for this character was his professor at the Edinburgh Medical School, the Scottish surgeon Dr. Joseph Bell – apparently, an extraordinary lecturer and physician, whose sharp eye and inference powers were frequently requested by the police in the toughest investigations.

During Conan Doyle's lifetime, especially during the last decades of the nineteenth century – while he still combined writing with medical practice – surgery became a wellestablished medical discipline. Two fundamental advances were involved: anesthesia and sterilization. In the 1840s, the discovery of ether and chloroform allowed doctors to overcome the barrier of pain, and surgeons were able to venture deeper, performing more elaborate operations. Long story short, in the 1860s, John Lister implemented sterilization for fighting infection, following the steps of the unfortunate Ignaz Semmelweis, and the groundbreaking experiments of Louis Pasteur, which led to the confirmation that infection was caused by microorganisms.

Modern surgery has continued to advance in the search for improved methods to fight pain and infection, while striving to minimize invasiveness, recovery time, and secondary effects. Instruments grew sharper and gentler in order to deal with smaller and more delicate objects. The advance of microscopy and computer-assisted manipulation now helps surgeons to go beyond the power of their eyes and hands to dissect and solve the most complex cases, sometimes hidden behind layers of tissue, as in the case of a blocked coronary artery or a leak of cerebrospinal fluid.