As a consumer of macabre and grotesque media, you the listener may believe yourself to be already acquainted with the story of Robert Liston. Thousands of websites, podcasts, and even peer reviewed academic journals and publications have recounted the fantastic story of an operation performed by Robert Liston which resulted in the deaths of not only his patient, but also of his surgical assistant and a bystander. The story goes that in his efforts to expedite as much as possible the process of amputating his patient's leg, that Liston accidentally removed 2 fingers from his assistant, and whilst flourishing his knife about also nicked the coat of an observer. The patient died on the operating table, the man whose coat was slashed died of a heart attack, and the assistant died some time later after the remaining stumps of his fingers became gangrenous. This story has been recounted hundreds of times, each telling inevitably concluding with the clever summation that this was the only ...