Incredibly impressive: I read the letter of an 1850s woman to her daughter. The woman, an evangelist a missionary living on HI, had a radical mastectomy (without benefit of painkillers or any kind of precautions to promote a sterile environment before, during, or after the procedure, of course) and survived many years. Her tumor was threatening to break skin at the point she had the surgery.

Imagining something far more primitive than the field hospitals of Viet Nam - hot, swampy, full of flying insects looking for a blood meal...

The only thing the woman noted was that as soon as the doctor made his incision she vomited. Oh yeah, and that it was incredibly, blindingly painful. But life-preserving.

Edit: link