HISTORY.
Dr. Gilman Kimball of Lowell, Mass., was the first to deliberately plan and execute an abdominal hysterectomy for fibroids of the uterus. The operation was performed in August, 1853. On June 25 of that year, Dr. Walter Burnham of the same city removed a portion of the uterus for this disease. Ten years later, December 19, 1863, Koeberle did his first hysterectomy for fibroids, with external fixation of the stump of the uterus. He employed a metallic ligature with a special device for tightening it. Péan soon followed Koeberle and supplementing the latter's work by the free employment of forci-pressure, and by publishing a systematic technique, which included the employment of steel pedicle pins over the metallic ligature for maintaining the pedicle extra-abdominally; his name became inseparably associated with hysterectomy by the extra-peritoneal method. Dr. M. M. Latta, Goshen, Ind., completed abdominal hysterectomy by tying the broad ligaments in