John Syng Dorsey (1783-1818).

: John Syng Dorsey is one of the unsung heroes of American surgery. In 1811 he performed this country's first successful ligation of the external iliac artery, for a massive aneurysm in the right groin. Two years later he wrote America's first systematic textbook of surgery. In addition, he held the professorial chairs of Materia Medica and Anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania. All this was accomplished in a life that ended at 35 years. The memory of Dorsey is dimmed by the passage of time, but his bold and innovative approach to surgical problems is a stirring chapter in the history of American surgery. Through research with the use of primary archival and secondary source material in the form of previously unpublished manuscripts, correspondence, and background information, a biographical sketch is presented.