<P> In The Iliad Homer names two doctors, "the two sons of Asklepios, the admirable physicians Podaleirius and Machaon and one acting doctor, Patroclus . Because Machaon is wounded and Podaleirius is in combat Eurypylus asks Patroclus "to cut out this arrow from my thigh, wash off the blood with warm water and spread soothing ointment on the wound ." </P> <P> The Hippocratic Oath, written in the 5th century BC provides the earliest protocol for professional conduct and ethical behavior a young physician needed to abide by in life and in treating and managing the health and privacy of his patients . The multiple volumes of the Hippocratic corpus and the Hippocratic Oath elevated and separated the standards of proper Hippocratic medical conduct and its fundamental medical and surgical principles from other practitioners of folk medicine often laden with superstitious constructs, and / or of specialists of sorts some of whom would endeavor to carry out invasive body procedures with dubious consequences, such as lithotomy . Works from the Hippocratic corpus include; On the Articulations or On Joints, On Fractures, On the Instruments of Reduction, The Physician's Establishment or Surgery, On Injuries of the Head, On Ulcers, On Fistulae, and On Hemorrhoids . </P> <P> Herophilus of Chalcedon and Erasistratus of Ceos were two great Alexandrians who laid the foundations for the scientific study of anatomy and physiology . Alexandrian surgeons were responsible for developments in ligature (hemostasis), lithotomy, hernia operations, ophthalmic surgery, plastic surgery, methods of reduction of dislocations and fractures, tracheotomy, and mandrake as anesthesia . Most of what we know of them comes from Celsus and Galen of Pergamum (Greek: Γαληνός) </P> <P> Galen's On the Natural Faculties, Books I, II, and III, is an excellent paradigm of a very accomplished Greek surgeon and physician of the 2nd century Roman era, who carried out very complex surgical operations and added significantly to the corpus of animal and human physiology and the art of surgery . He was one of the first to use ligatures in his experiments on animals . Galen is also known as "The king of the catgut suture" </P>

Who performed the first surgery by a european in the american southwest