"I spent a part of ...1923 with...Dr. W.W. Keen...In the ..Civil War....he was a surgeon...and had seen many men die from suppuration of wounds after he had operated. ...He would hold the sutures in his teeth and sharpen his knife on the sole of his boot, after he had raised up his boot from the muddy ground. That was the accepted practice at the time."

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...No one died from infection under Keen. ...He (Keen) began to chronicle the results in statistical articles. He was threatened with expulsion from the Pennsylvania Medical Association.....This was in the 1890's....Finally was accepted as the greatest surgeon in the US. The old man told me - and he started to cry...'I nearly went under. I was nearly shut off.

— Paul Douglas