History of surgery in Rhode Island

In 1925, founder John Keefe(1) and in 1974, the late Tom Perry(2) delivered presidential addresses to the New England Surgical Society (NESS) recounting the essential happenings of surgery in Rhode Island from its founding to the mid-19th century. We will not repeat the details of those excellent essays, but events from that era must be reviewed to permit an understanding of the course of events since.