This comprehensive surgical approach to hysterectomy rests on the pillars erected by the great
masters in our specialty. The first hysterectomy was performed as a vaginal hysterectomy and
dates back to ancient times. The procedure was performed in the time of Soranus of Ephesus,
120 years after the birth of Christ. There were many reports of its use in the Middle Ages,
nearly always for the extirpation of an inverted uterus, and the patients rarely survived.
Hysterectomy became safer with the introduction of anesthesia, antibiotics and antisepsis,
blood transfusions, and intravenous therapy. During the 1930s, Richardson introduced the total
abdominal hysterectomy to avoid serosanguinous discharge from the cervical remnant and the
risk of cervical carcinoma developing in the stump.